TRIPOLI, libya — The killing of an electoral worker and calls for a boycott on the eve of Libya’s first vote since the overthrow of longtime dictator Moammar Khadafy raised fears of election violence even as campaigning came to an end Friday.
The election Saturday of a 200-member transitional parliament caps a messy nine-month transition after a ruinous 2011 civil war that ended in October with the death of Khadafy, whose four-decade rule left the country divided along regional, tribal and ideological lines.
The parliament will elect a transitional government to replace the one appointed by the National Transitional Council that led the rebel side during the eight-month war and held power in its aftermath.
Many in Libya’s oil-rich east feel slighted by the NTC-issued election laws, purportedly based on population, that allocate their region less than a third of the parliamentary seats. The rest will go to the western region that includes Tripoli and the sparsely settled desert south.
In what it called an attempt to defuse east-west tensions, the NTC decreed on Thursday that the parliament will not be responsible for naming the panel that will draft a new constitution. Instead, the drafters will be directly elected by the public in a vote at a later date.
This has not satisfied some in the east, who press for a boycott. “We don’t want Tripoli to rule all of Libya,” said Fadlallah Haroun, a former rebel commander in the east’s regional capital Benghazi.
On Friday, gunmen shot down a helicopter carrying polling materials near the eastern city of Benghazi, killing one election commission worker, said NTC spokesman Saleh Darhoub. He said the aircraft came under attack while flying over Benina airport on the city’s outskirts and that the crew survived after a crash landing.
It was not clear who was behind the attack.
The shooting, however, was merely the latest unrest in the messy run-up to the vote.
Late Thursday, former militiamen shut down three eastern oil refineries — in Ras Lanouf, Brega and Sidr — to press the transitional government to cancel the vote, Haroun said. He said militiamen also have cut the country’s main coastal highway linking east to west.
Earlier this week, former rebel fighters and other angry protesters in Benghazi and in the nearby town of Ajdabiya attacked elections offices, setting fire to ballot papers and other voting materials.
Haroun said boycott supporters would take to the streets on election day to “prevent people from voting because this is a vote that serves those who stole the revolution from us.” He said they would not take up arms, but when asked how they would stop voters, he said, “We will see tomorrow.”
The vote also will be a test of the strength of Islamist parties, which have gained influence in Libya and other nations after the ouster of authoritarian regimes. Groups vying for power range from the politically savvy Muslim Brotherhood to the ultraconservative Salafis and former jihadists.
Going to the polls
Facts about Libya’s election Saturday for a 200-member General National Congress:
Eligible voters: 3.3 million.
Registered voters: Almost 2.9 million
Not eligible to vote: Officials from Moammar Khadafy’s regime
Allocation of seats: 100 for Tripoli and the west, 60 for Benghazi and the east, 40 for southwest
Candidates: 3,700, including 585 women
Next steps: The new parliament will appoint a Cabinet within 30 days. A second election will determine a 60-member body to write a new constitution, followed by a referendum on the constitution. The Associated Press
