New Tunisian president vows not to name PM aligned with ousted president

The newly-elected Tunisian President, Beji Caid Essebsi, affirmed that the prime minister he would select to head a new government would not be aligned to the ousted president, Zine El-Abidine Bin Ali.
The new premier will not be one of the former ministers who had served the former leadership of Bin Ali who was brought down in January 2011, Essebsi said in a statement to the local official radio station, broadcast on Tuesday.
Essebsi, 88, was a former official in Ben Ali's one-party administration, but later he proclaimed himself as a technocrat within the secular Nidaa Tounes (Call for Tunisia) party.
He also told the radio station that he would hold consultations within his party ahead of choosing a new premier, re-stressing that he would not pick one of the figures who had worked with the ousted president. He also confirmed that he would resign from the party to serve the whole nation.
He was reacting to buzzing rumors that he might to tend to name in the leadership those who were aligned with Bin Ali.
Essebsi has won Tunisia's presidential elections, the Higher Electoral Commission announced on Monday. The veteran politician received 55.68 percent of the valid votes in the run-off held on Sunday, defeating the incumbent president Moncef Marzouki.
It was the first free presidential election held in the North African country since the "Jasmine Revolution" ousted Bin Ali on January 14, 2011.