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Tunisians voted Sunday in their first presidential election since the 2011 revolution that sparked the Arab Spring, in a ballot set to round off an often fraught transition to democracy.

With voting finished across the country, the campaign manager the secular Nidaa Tounes party said leader Beji Caid Essebsi, 87, came top in Tunisia's presidential election but will probably need to contest a runoff.

Mohesen Marzouk said Essebsi fell "not far short" of the absolute majority needed to win outright, but that a second round in late December was likely. He did not say which candidate was running second.

But the campaign of the incumbent, Moncef Marzouki, disputed the Nidaa Tounes figures and suggested the two

God willing, it will be a great festival of democracy. - Mehdi Jomaa

frontrunners were running “neck-and-neck”.

"At the worst we are even but at best we're between two and four percent ahead," Marzouki's campaign manager Adnene Mancer told reporters after polling stations closed.

A run-off vote will be held at the end of December if there is no outright winner. The result will be known by Wednesday.

Other candidates included several ministers who served under ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, as well as leftwinger Hamma Hammami, business magnate Slim Riahi and a lone woman, magistrate Kalthoum Kannou.

Whatever the outcome, many Tunisians saw the election as a milestone in the North African country, where for the first time they could freely choose their president.

"This election is very important. It's the culmination of the revolution and something that we really should not pass up," said an electoral observer who gave his name only as Moez.

Bechir Yahyaoui could hardly control his emotions as he voted in the Tunis district of Hay el-Khadhra, saying that for once he was "voting for who I want, with no pressure, no bribes".

"Before (under Ben Ali) you had to go and vote, regardless of the outcome. This time the election is free and transparent," he said.

Some 5.3 million people were eligible to vote, with tens of thousands of police and troops deployed to guarantee security amid fears Islamist militants might seek to disrupt polling day.

Historic day

Polling stations opened at 7am GMT and closed at 5pm GMT, but voting was restricted to just five hours in about 50 localities near the Algerian border, where armed groups are active.

Turnout was estimated at nearly 58 percent an hour and a half before polling ended.

Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa hailed the vote. "It's a historic day, the first presidential election in Tunisia held under advanced democratic norms," he said.

"God willing, it will be a great festival of democracy."

Tunisia has won international plaudits for largely steering clear of the violence, repression and lawlessness of other Arab Spring states such as neighbouring Libya.

Until the revolution, Tunisia knew only two presidents – Habib Bourguiba, the "father of independence" from France in 1956, and Ben Ali, who deposed him in a 1987 coup.

To prevent another dictatorship, presidential powers have been restricted under a new constitution, with executive prerogatives transferred to a premier drawn from parliament's top party.

'Long live Tunisia'

Frontrunner Essebsi ran on a campaign of "state prestige", a slogan with wide appeal to Tunisians anxious for instability to end.

Supporters argue only he can stand up to the Islamists who first held power in the post-Ben Ali era, but critics charge he is out to restore the old regime, having served under both former presidents.

"Long live Tunisia," Essebsi said as he voted in a suburb of the capital.

Marzouki, who argues that only he can preserve the gains of the uprising, voted near the city of Sousse, south of Tunis.

Protesters demonstrating against his bid for re-election were kept at bay by police, an AFP reporter said. The Marzouki camp accused Essebsi supporters of planning to attack the incumbent when he arrived to vote.

Critics have accused Marzouki of having forged a pact "with the devil" in 2011 when he joined a coalition with the moderate Islamist party Ennahdha.

Ennahdha, which came second in the parliamentary election, did not put up a candidate and invited its members "to elect a president who will guarantee democracy".

"The polls are an important turning point for Tunisia, the outcome of a whole process that will allow Tunisians to decide their future," said veterinary professor Jamel Shemli.

Whoever wins, tackling the faltering economy will be a top priority, with unemployment, a leading cause of the revolution, running at 15 percent.