Libya's newly formed national assembly has elected former opposition leader Mohammed el-Megarif as the country's interim president, the latest move to establish a democratically based leadership after decades of rule by Muammar Gaddafi.

Mr el-Megarif won 113 votes to defeat another opposition leader, human rights lawyer Ali Zidan, who won 85 votes from the 200-member General National Congress, an assembly created in the first nationwide election since Gaddafi's removal. Both men were diplomats who defected and fought Gaddafi's regime while living in exile since the 1980s.

Mr el-Megarif, who authored a series of books on Gaddafi's repressive policies, lived as a wanted fugitive for years, and was the leader of the country's oldest armed opposition movement, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya.