TRIPOLI, Libya — Libya’s first nationwide elections in nearly five decades brought hints Sunday of an Arab Spring precedent: Western-leaning parties making strides over Islamist rivals hoping to follow the same paths to power as in Egypt and Tunisia.
While final results from Saturday’s parliamentary election could be days away under a two-tier selection system, unofficial and partial counts from Libya’s biggest cities suggested liberal factions were leading the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies.
If the Libyan trend holds — which is far from certain — it would challenge the narrative of rising Islamist power since the fall of Western-allied regimes from Tunis to Cairo. It also could display the different political dynamics in Libya, where tribal loyalties run deep and groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood at times cooperated with the rule of Moammar Khadafy.
“Anyone with past ties with old regime is hated, even despised,” said Fathi al-Fadhali, a pro-Islamist Libyan political analyst who lived in exile for 30 years. “Any political names associated with the regime are immediately politically burnt by that association.”
President Barack Obama congratulated Libyans on the vote, calling it “another milestone on their extraordinary transition to democracy.”
Now, the ballots have to be portioned out according to two categories: Eighty seats are set aside for party lists, with the remaining 120 reserved for individual independent candidates.
A liberal alliance led by the former rebel prime minister Mahmoud Jibril appeared to hold more than half the seats in the capital city of Tripoli and the revolution stronghold of Benghazi, according to several party representatives.
