Libyan Justice and Construction supporters during a Libyan National Assembly Campaign rally at Martyrs Square[/caption]
Libya is gearing up for country-wide polls to elect a General National Congress on 7 July in what is promised to be the nation’s first free vote since 1969.
Around 2,500 candidates are competing for 200 seats in the transitional parliament, tasked with appointing a prime minister and a cabinet, as well as electing an additional 60-member constituent assembly, split evenly among the Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan regions. Voter turnout is expected to reach 2.2 million—that’s 80 percent of all eligible voters.
Campaigning ended on 5 July as reports of violence in the eastern province of Cyrenaica, home to Benghazi, Ajdabiya and Sirte, where one member of the Libyan High National Elections Commission (HNEC) Abdallah Hussain, was killed on Friday, serve to remind the country’s 6.5 million citizens of the fragile security environment in which the election is taking place.
Not surprisingly, the prospects for a new Libya in which some fear exclusion has highlighted and exacerbated the many fault lines that have in part overwhelmed any attempts to maintain security. While some have witnessed violence between those against Qadhafi and the tahloub, a Libyan word meaning green moss that is used to describe Qadhafi supporters, others point to militia rivalry and geographical disenfranchisement.
On this latter point, what many residents of the eastern province of Cyrenaica see as an unfair allotment of parliamentary seats—102 for Tripolitania, 38 for Fezzan, and 60 for Cyrenaica—has led to attacks on offices belonging to the High National Elections Commission (HNEC) in Benghazi and Ajdabiya. In a message to Libya’s constituent authority, the Cyrenaica Council has called on voters to boycott Saturday’s election.
Illegitimate and unaccountable centers of power can also be blamed for the current state of affairs inside Libya today. The various militias responsible for security throughout the country, for instance, are widely regarded as a primary challenge facing Libya’s transition to a stable democratic country whereby the rule of law is paramount.
A senior adviser to Libyan candidate Mahmoud Jibril, Fowzi Amar Allolaki, comments on the current situation: “It has been extremely difficult and at times impossible for the central authorities to rein in the brigades and contain the ensuing sporadic violence in the regions,” Allolaki writes in The Hill. “The recent violence is reviving and fueling formerly dormant interethnic and intertribal tensions.”
Indeed, a recent report released by Amnesty International confirms Allolaki’s observations, citing arbitrary arrests and detention, torture— sometimes to death, impunity for unlawful killings and forcible displacement. These violations, it emphasizes, are ongoing.
Certainly, the disorganized and unaccountable nature of these militias has allowed armed individuals and groups to act with impunity, thereby preventing the formation of a strong and legitimate central government, yet, at the same time, it can be argued that without them there would be more violence.
Addressing the status of these militias should in reality be an immediate priority for the new government, because without security and accountability, there will be no justice, liberty or economic prosperity.
