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Subscribe to RSSLess than a year after Moammar Gadhafi's fall, Libyan's vote in what U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon hailed as "a march toward democracy." It's the country's first democratic election in more than half a century as Libyans choose a National Congress. Lindsey Hilsu, Channel 4 Europe, reports.
BENGHAZI, Libya -- Gunfire killed a Libyan election commission worker riding in a helicopter Friday, officials said.
The helicopter carrying ballots for Saturday's election made a forced landing at Benina International Airport outside the eastern town of Benghazi, an official said.
It was the latest attempt to derail elections in a region where many seek more autonomy and argue they will be under-represented in a new 200-member congress that will name a prime minister and pave the way for full parliamentary polls next year.
"We were preparing to receive the voting material as it arrived on a helicopter from Tripoli but it was hit and one man died," Ahmed Abdelmalik, an employee at an election commission branch told Reuters.
Hamed Al-Hassi, head of the military council for the Cyrenaica region, confirmed the incident but said the identity of the attackers was not immediately known.
Manu Brabo / AP
A Libyan election official works at a polling station Friday in Tripoli.
"A helicopter carrying ballots and flying over the region of Hawari (south of Benghazi) was struck by small arms fire," army spokesman Colonel Ali al-Sheikhi told Agence France Presse.
Earlier protests by groups seeking greater autonomy in the east forced the closure of three ports, shutting down around half of Libya's oil exporting capacity.
On Thursday, the main storage center for election materials in the eastern town of Ajdabiya was badly damaged in a suspected arson attack.
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The elections are Libya's first free national vote in over half a century and come barely a year after the ousting of Moammar Gadhafi by a NATO-backed uprising. Regional and tribal loyalties suppressed under Gadhafi have since come to the fore.
"We expected this issue," Emad El-Sayih, deputy head of Libya's High National Election Commission (HNEC), told Reuters.
"There is no security in this country -- the interior ministry and the army are incapable of protecting the elections. The (election) commission is in a state of depression."
Several East Libya groups want the country's interim rulers to review the allocation of seats in the General National Congress. The system allocates 100 seats to the west, including Tripoli, 60 to the oil-rich east and 40 to the sparsely settled south. Advocates of federalism are demanding an equal distribution of seats among Libya's regions.
The National Transitional Council has led rebels during the eight-month war and held power in its aftermath.
This article includes reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press.
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Libya is the colossal failure of 'after' US?NATO toppling Qaddafi- the rebels have their own militias (like in China in 1930's) war lords with their Western automatic guns,propelled grenades ans insatiable vengeance against Subsaharans,tribes and each other. Remember they took ICC lawyers as their hostages(sent to prison) for made up charges of letters to Saif Al-Islam Qaddafi. No one was there to oversee peaceful rearmament-functioning g'ment institutions. NTC is incapable of restroring law and order- taking former rebels into national army. Yet Obama adm.lifted all sanctions and unfroze the assets w/o any agreements to uphold institutions to govern Libya. Now Libya's multiple arms have been sold in the black market-to other rebels and terrorists orgs. It is a colossal failure on Obama adm. part- no planning for day after. The rebels/terrorists have also been desecragating other relioins' graveyards ,religious symbols, looting, sentencing to life in prison for foreign workers (Russian,Belarussian,Ukrainian),untold hordes of SubSaharans w/o any access to courts,Red Cross,aid orgs,embassies. The Ghosts of Libya.
الله يساعد الشعب الليبي جيد وأطيب التمنيات من أجل مستقبل أفضل.
Another country about to fall to the Muslim Brotherhood...
The road from tyranny to democracy is too often paved with the lives and souls of patriots. It is sad that in many countries of the uncivilized world, death is the only true freedom. The impossibility of solving problems and reaching agreements through intelligent rhetoric with brain-washed religious zealots is the problem of the millennium.