LIBYA: LIBYANS ELECT PUBLIC OFFICIALS IN THE POST-GADAFFI ERA

Most would agree that there was no bigger global news in the past week than that of the Libyan people going to the polls in what is the country’s first free and fair democratic election in six decades. The polls will determine members of its National House of Assembly who will then be tasked with responsibility for selecting the country’s Prime Minister and a cabinet. Parliamentary elections are also due to be held in the country next year.

The historic elections come just under a year since the capture and killing of the country’s erstwhile dictator, Muammar Gadaffi during the country’s 8-month long civil war. Most will recall that the now deposed dictator ruled his people with iron fists during the course of his 42-year rule. Amongst Gadaffi’s first deeds upon assuming power in 1969 was the abolishment of direct elections on the grounds that they were anti-democratic.

Despite the unprecedented set of events which took place in the country last week, there were real fears that the elections may be overshadowed by pre-election violence. Aside calls for the boycott of elections on the grounds that resources were unfairly skewed towards Tripoli, several cities and towns in the country such as Benghazi and Ras Lanuf were said to be the scenes of the violence. At the time of writing it is reported that some polling stations had been stormed by protesters and ballot boxes destroyed.

Nevertheless the elections are said to have passed off relatively peacefully. The country’s Muslim Brotherhood party, buoyed by its namesake’s recent victory in Egypt, is currently tipped as frontrunner in the elections. In spite of the negative reports it appears that threats of boycotts and violence will simply not be enough to dampen the enthusiasm of the 6 million people inhabiting a nation which has been deprived of democracy for over half a century. Observers will continue to watch the country’s affairs intently not least as a result of its status as a test case of the validity of the much debated and much maligned, in some quarters, concept of “humanitarian intervention”.