TUNIS (AFP) ― The head of anti-Islamist Nidaa Tounes party, Beji Caid Essebsi, leads Tunisia’s presidential election with 39.46 percent of votes, six percentage points ahead of incumbent Moncef Marzouki, results showed Tuesday.

Because there was no outright winner, a second round of voting will now be held, with the date depending on any appeals, said the head of the ISIE elections body, Chafik Sarsar.

Marzouki secured 33.43 percent of votes cast in an election European Union observers called “pluralist and transparent.”

Leftwing figurehead Hamma Hammami came third with 7.82 percent, followed by London-based Islamist entrepreneur Hechmi Hamdi (5.75 percent) and wealthy businessman and football club president Slim Riahi (5.55 percent).

Sunday’s election was the first time Tunisians had voted freely for their head of state since independence from France in 1956.

The North African nation that sparked the Arab Spring had known just two presidents ― “father of independence” Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was forced to flee on Jan. 14, 2011 by a popular uprising.

Marzouki was elected president at the end of 2011 by the National Constituent Assembly under a coalition deal with the then ruling Islamist Ennahda party, which came second in a parliamentary election last month behind Nidaa Tounes.

Annemie Neyts-Uytterbroeck, who headed the EU observer mission in Sunday’s election, described any irregularities as “minor.”

“The exercise of freedom of expression and assembly was guaranteed,” she said.

The contest for the expected runoff had begun even before the first round result became official on Tuesday.

Wasting no time in relaunching the battle after Sunday’s vote, Essebsi called Marzouki the candidate of “jihadist Salafists,” to which his rival countered by calling for “a debate on policies ... not (a campaign of) insults.”

Marzouki accused Essebsi of seeking to divide Tunisia between Islamist and secular groups.

“This person worked his whole life in a dictatorship,” Marzouki told French television. “This is a man who has nothing to do with democracy.”

The election is a milestone for Tunisia, where the ouster of long-time strongman Ben Ali set off a chain of revolts that saw several Arab dictators toppled by citizens demanding democratic reform.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry hailed Sunday’s vote as an “historic moment” in Tunisia’s transition to democracy.

His French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, called for Tunisia’s transition toward building new institutions to remain “inclusive and democratic.”