Libya To Elections

Local Editor

Libyans cast ballots Saturday for a national assembly, the first election since Moammar Gadhafi's ouster, after a string of acts of sabotage that have stoked tensions in the east of the country.

In the capital Tripoli, polling stations opened on schedule with queues of voters eager to elect the General National Congress, which will be at the helm of the country for a transition period, an Agence France Presse journalist said.
Voters in the capital turned up draped in black, red and green flags -- the colors of the revolution that toppled Gadhafi last year -- while mosques blasted chants of "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest).

In the eastern city of Benghazi, cradle of the uprising and heartland of elements threatening to derail the vote, polling stations also opened on time, another correspondent said.
Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, who heads a team of 21 European Union observers, said the vote marks a major milestone in the transition to democracy after 42-years of dictatorship.

"We believe that to have this election in Libya less than one year after the fall of Tripoli is an important achievement," Lambsdorff told AFP.
The vote may be a very different experience for residents of Tripoli, which has enjoyed a spell of calm than for those of cities in eastern Libya which have been rocked by acts of sabotage and threats to disrupt the vote.

On Friday, gunfire struck a helicopter in eastern Libya killing an election worker.
Ian Martin, head of the UN mission to Libya, urged "all voters to exercise their hard-earned democratic right to elect their National Congress representatives" while condemning the deadly attack.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group has warned the electoral process in Libya is "imperiled by armed protesters who... are threatening to disrupt the vote in the eastern part of the country."

The outgoing National Transitional Council (NTC) says seats were distributed according to demographic considerations, with 100 going to the west, 60 to the east and 40 to the south.
A total of 80 seats are reserved for party candidates while 120 seats are open to individual candidates. Altogether, 3,707 candidates are running in 72 districts across the country.

But factions in the east want an equal split of seats and have threatened to sabotage the vote if this demand is not met.
Libya has not seen elections since the era of late monarch King Idris, whom Gadhafi deposed in a bloodless coup in 1969.
The incoming congress will have legislative powers and appoint an interim government. But it no longer has the right to appoint a constituent authority, under a last-minute amendment issued by the NTC.
A February 2011 uprising ended more than four decades of the dictator who was killed while on the run last October.


Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org