Tunis - Tunisia's former prime minister Beji Caid Essibsi will face outgoing President Moncef Marzouki in a run-off vote for the presidency in December, the election commission announced on Tuesday.
Essibsi of the secularist Nidaa Tounes party won 39.5% of the vote in Sunday's poll, while Marzouki of the centre-left Congress for the Republic received 33.4%.
The moderate Islamist Ennahda movement, which placed second in last month's legislative elections, did not run a presidential candidate.
The date of the run-off vote will depend on whether candidates appeal the provisional first round results, the commission's Nabil Baffoun told the official Agence Tunis Afrique Presse on Monday.
Tunisia is widely seen as the sole success story of the Arab revolutionary movements of 2011.
Revolts in Libya, Syria and Yemen have all led to varying degrees of ongoing conflict, while Egypt saw its Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, elected in 2012, deposed by the army last year.