Liberals make headway in Libyan election, party says
By Nehal El-Sherif, dpa
Published on 08.07.2012
Benghazi, Libya (dpa) - A liberal coalition has made big gains in Libya's first national elections since Moamer Gaddafi's ouster, the party said on Sunday.
Salah al-Bishari, a coordinator at the National Forces Alliance's office in Benghazi city, quoted observers attending the count of votes cast in Saturday's National Congress election as saying that their grouping was in the lead.
"The Alliance's results are good across Libya, but these are unofficial numbers and we cannot announce them now," he told dpa.
The National Forces Alliance is a grouping of political parties led by Mahmoud Jibril, who was the rebel foreign minister during the conflict against Gaddafi last year.
The chairman of the election commission, Nuri al-Abbar, told a news conference in Tripoli that an estimated 1.6 million people, out of 2.8 million registered voters, had cast their ballots to elect the 200-member assembly.
He described the turnout as a "great success" as there were no major disruptions to the election process.
Al-Abbar said results would come out in the coming days, adding that the commission would not endorse any "speculations" for the time being.
The assembly, which will form a new government and maintain legislative powers for around one year, will consist of 120 directly elected members and 80 from contenders selected by political parties. Some 2,500 candidates were vying for the directly elected seats, with 1,202 names on the party lists.
The head of the Benghazi office of the Islamist al-Watan party said he would prefer to wait for the official results to be announced by the commission.
"There are leaked expectations for the results, but we will wait for the official announcement," said Mohamed Baeer, adding that his party had not presented any complaints to the commission.
"We are optimistic, and no matter what the results are we will respect them and respect the choice of Libyan people," he added.
While most Libyans celebrated the country's first election after decades of undemocratic rule under the late Gaddafi, there was scattered violence in eastern Libya.
