TRIPOLI, Libya — On a muggy evening in Tripoli’s walled Old City, Joma el-Shwehdi gleefully slapped campaign posters on the sides of buildings.
What was the platform of the man he was supporting? What promises had the candidate made ahead of Saturday’s election for Libya’s national assembly?
Shwehdi shrugged.
“I don’t know anything about that,” the 24-year-old said as he smoothed a poster on the side of a stucco clock tower. “He’s a friend, and he lives near me, so I support him.”
After a politically stagnant 42 years during which the only leadership option was Moammar Khadafy and the only ideology his Green Book, Libyans are dazzled, if a little befuddled, by the array of posters, pamphlets, radio commercials and hot-air balloons festooning their cities and towns in the run-up to their first national elections in nearly half a century.
Most parties were formed in the past few months. Campaigning officially began two weeks ago, and most voters don’t know anything about most of the people running for office.
Even so, many are embracing the political process.
“I’m excited,” said Taha al-Turki, 53, a construction-company employee. Sitting at an outdoor cafe in Tripoli, he held up his orange-and-white voter-registration card and said, “This is our fate in our hands.”
As with everything in post-Khadafy Libya, the election is provoking a wide range of responses. Some Libyans complain that it has been too long in coming and that in the eight months since Khadafy’s death, a weak transitional government has allowed armed militias to become entrenched.
Others argue that they are voting too early, saying that first the militias should be disarmed, the borders secured and citizens given more time to familiarize themselves with the more than 3,700 candidates and 142 parties and civil society coalitions.
“To educate people in such a short time is a sort of mission impossible,” said Imad Alsayh, vice president of Libya’s high commission for elections. “We’re talking about re-educating people who have had nothing to do with elections for 50 years.”
Candidates speak broadly of national unity, transparency and rule of law, but few have developed concrete plans to put these ideas into practice.
Some parties are linked with well-known figures of the revolution. Former Transitional National Council officials Mahmoud Jibril and Ali Tarhouni have formed secular-leaning parties, and Islamist fighter Abdulhakim Belhadj, backed by a new party, is running for a seat.
But individuals hoping to represent their towns and neighborhoods lack a history of political activity. Instead, they are relying on name recognition.
Registered voters
More than 2.8 million people — more than 85 percent of eligible voters — have registered to vote for a 200-member national congress. The congress will appoint an interim government and select 60 people to write a constitution to be approved by voters in a referendum, setting Libya on the path to a permanent political system.
