TUNIS, Tunisia - Tunisia's new assembly has chosen a veteran rights activist as the country's first democratically elected president.
Moncef Marzouki of the Congress for the Republic Party on Monday became interim president with 153 out of 217 votes in the assembly.
He ran unopposed after the opposition declined to put forward a candidate and nine others did not meet the criteria.
Tunisians overthrew their long ruling dictator in January and in October elected an assembly to write the new constitution and form an interim government.
Marzouki is expected to appoint a prime minister from the moderate Islamist Ennahda party which was once brutally repressed but now won the most seats in the assembly.
