People queue outside a polling station during the second round of the presidential election, in Tunis, Tunisia, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2019. Tunisians are voting for president, choosing between a law professor and a populist tycoon. Photo: AP Photo/Mosa’ab Elshamy.

TUNIS – Tunisians are choosing between a retired law professor and a media mogul in the final vote of a presidential election on Sunday, eight years after a revolution that forged a new democracy and inspired the “Arab spring”.

Kais Saied and Nabil Karoui are starkly different candidates who beat 24 rivals including many top politicians in the first round of voting last month, as Tunisians rejected a political establishment that has failed to address chronic economic ills.

At a polling booth in the upmarket Lac area of northern Tunis where Karoui will vote later on Sunday, 21-year-old student Najwa Salmi said she had travelled from her university in the city of Sousse to elect the next head of state.

“We want a president who respects his powers… we don’t need one who will bring in his family,” she said, without saying who she would vote for.

Tunisia’s president has less direct control over policy than the prime minister and a separate legislative election last week created a deeply fractured parliament with no clear path to a new governing coalition.