The moderate National Forces Alliance (NFA) of wartime Libyan prime minister Mahmoud Jibril scored a landslide victory over rival Islamist parties in Libya’s first free national election in a generation, partial tallies showed on Thursday.
Counts from across the North African country attested to a resounding defeat for the political wing of Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood, bucking a trend of success for Islamist groups in other Arab Spring countries, such as Egypt and Tunisia.
Final official results are not due until next week, but with a large majority of votes counted, Jibril’s alliance had unbeatable leads in Tripoli, the desert south and the eastern city of Benghazi, the cradle of last year’s rebellion against 42 years of Muammar Qaddafi’s rule.
Photo: Reuters
“The people saw in Jibril an openness to the rest of the world and they craved this openness after being closed off by Qaddafi,” Libyan political analyst Nasser Ahdash said of the Western-educated politician, who became the face of last year’s uprising.
Another Islamist group, the al-Watan (“Homeland”) party of former Islamist militant Abdul Hakim Belhadj, failed to take off. Belhadj was even set to lose in his Tripoli constituency.
“We’ve got to re-evaluate our performance and decide what kind of alliances we would like to make or to be a strong opposition by ourselves,” party spokesman Anas al-Fetory said.
No comment was available from the NFA or the Justice and Construction Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In Central Tripoli district, Jibril’s alliance won 46,000 votes against 4,000 for the Justice and Construction Party. He scored victories in three other Tripoli districts and an allied party won the fifth.
“I voted for him,” oil worker Ayman Abuda, 35, said as he shopped for groceries in Tripoli. “I hope Libya now will have a good future. The results show that my choice was right.”
Rivals now have the chance to appeal the vote before the result is declared final. Moreover, Jibril’s nationwide wins will not automatically translate into a majority in the new 200-head assembly, since the bulk of the seats have been allotted to independent candidates whose allegiances are hard to pin down.
That assembly is due to pick a prime minister and a Cabinet, before preparing for full parliamentary elections next year.
Speculation is growing that Jibril could emerge from the process as Libya’s next leader — potentially as president if a new constitution chooses that form of government.
Jibril is playing down talk of his future role for now and has called for parties of all hues to come together for talks on forming a national unity coalition with a priority of rebuilding Libya.
Yet such contacts could be prickly, with Islamist groups this week accusing Jibril of playing up his Islamic credentials to woo religious-minded voters.
Jibril, 60, says he has been a devout Muslim since the age of 14, and has long rejected the labels of secular and liberal.
“There are no liberals in Libya,” said Suleiman Zoobi, an independent candidate winner in Benghazi. “Jibril is a Libyan who fasts and prays, and whoever says he is a liberal doesn’t know what they are talking about.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in