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Subscribe to RSSPeople in Libya are casting their ballots to elect a new Parliament with preliminary results expected to be announced Sunday. NBC's Martin Fletcher reports.
A Libya anti-election protester was shot dead in the eastern town of Ajdabiya on Saturday when he tried to steal a ballot box from a polling station during the nation’s first free national poll in 60 years, officials say.
Ajdabiya has been a focus of protests against the election by eastern Libyans who say the vote designed to shake off the legacy of Moammar Gadhafi’s 40-year, one-man rule and elect a 200-member parliament is a sham and want more autonomy for their region. The east had been allotted only 60 seats in the assembly compared to 102 for the west.
An official said by telephone that the protester was killed in an exchange of fire with local people trying to prevent disruption of the election. Two people were wounded.
Elsewhere, Libyans’ joy over voting was tempered by boycott calls, the burning of ballots and attacks on eastern polling centers. The unrest exposed major fault lines in the oil-rich North African nation of 6 million people — the east-west divide and efforts by Islamists to assert power.
PhotoBlog: Libyans vote in first election in 60 years
Polls closed at 8 p.m. (2 p.m. ET) in most places, but delays in starting caused voting to go later in some cities, Al Jazeera reported. In Ajdabiya and other places where voting did not get under way until the afternoon, balloting will go as late as 7 a.m. Sunday, the Arab news agency reported.
Preliminary results are expected to be reported Sunday.
Despite troubles, overall turnout was high, the BBC reported.
Earlier: Tension as polls open in first Libyan election in 60 years
Few Libyans remember their last national vote in 1965, when no political parties were allowed, the BBC said, noting even fewer took part in their country's first parliamentary elections in February 1952, shortly after independence.
Mohammed Abed / AFP - Getty Images
Libyan protesters demanding greater representation shout slogans Saturday outside a polling station in the eastern city of Benghazi.
"I feel free at last. It's a feeling I cannot describe: Like a human being," Asmaddin Arifi told the BBC.
Voters flashed the V-for-victory sign as they entered polling centers, The Associated Press reported. Motorists honked their horns as they drove past. Others shouted "Allahu Akbar," or "God is Greater," from their car windows.
In the Mediterranean port city of Benghazi, cradle of the Libyan revolution, pro-autonomy activists Saturday seized electoral papers and ballot boxes. A BBC Arabic reporter said security forces did not intervene.
Libyan election worker killed in chopper crash day ahead of balloting
A day earlier outside Benghazi, gunfire struck a helicopter and killed an election commission worker aboard the flight that was carrying voting materials.
Armed men stopped voters casting their ballots in the port town of Ras Lanuf, the BBC reported.
But Nuri al-Abbar, the head of the election commission, told the BBC that 94 percent of polling stations across the country had opened normally.
The four major contenders in the Libyan race range from the Muslim Brotherhood-linked party and another Islamist coalition on one end of the spectrum to a secular-minded party led by a Western-educated former rebel prime minister on the other.
Despite the divisions and unrest, the prevailing mood was one of triumph.
"We are celebrating today and we want the whole world to celebrate with us," Prime Minister Abdurrahim el-Keib said after he cast his ballot in Tripoli.
This article includes reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press.
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"Security forces did not intervene." Uhh, that's when the 2th Amendment comes in handy. :)
2th?
Hmmm, wonder if Obama is pushing for the muslim brotherhood takeover of Libya too!
He did such a bang up job in Egypt...
I wonder if he was a disgruntled Conservative mad because the liberal Brotherhood Party was sure to win the election?
yes, what gives familyguy01 the right to make a typo or mis-think the specific word he or she is typing when giving an opinion.
thank god for the typo police. our society will just go straight to hell without them.
ps. i hope everyone realizes how sarcastic my above comment is, though i have little to no faith in our politically correct society to understand that.
familyguy01, believe and post what you want and screw the politically correct typo police who have nothing to add.
i have nothing else to add except to add, i bet in our own elections, more than one person has been killed for one reason or another during the election.
for all the politically correct police, no i haven't researched that, but i bet a quick google will prove me right.
pps. no i am not a supporter of islamic takeover. nonetheless, as ive always been told, "it is what it is".
I do not believe the Libyans have a 2nd amendment right. I think the just carry guns and shoot those they have differences with because that's the way it just is.
I hope the election is legit and they get some kinda freedom and rights for the people.
Don't mess with the ballot box.
lol, you got my vote ! "Don't mess with the ballot box", while i'm enjoying an warsteiner dunkel.
Too many, of these poor illiterate fools, believe the elections will bring God back to their countries. When, in reality, they'll just be giving power the the most Fred Phelps type nuts, to be found!
one person oh my god. That must be the safest place in the world.
Give these poor people a break. This is their first experiment with democracy. They're just not quite sure yet how it's supposed to work. We have had over 200 years of experience with it, and I'm not so sure we even understand how it's supposed to work.
The East/West divide is also a matter that they weren't always one country. Prior to Gadhafi's takeover, prior to the election in 1952, they were 2, and yes we're talking about a country that's having to build.
No doubt, East vs West would be more akin to the sort of united country that would result, if someone decided that it's time for the UK and France to form into a single nation, and then they started having debates about how many seats (how much representation) the French should or shouldn't have. Not so likely to be bloody, but certainly sure to make it into the late night comics, we could just imagine how that would go off... Just suggest to a British person that he sounds French, wait for him to express how insulted he feels, and you'll see what I mean with this :o A united country can only go so far, when the people's are divided, because they never really united into a single people, to begin with....
Hell, we had less of that (our fore barers came from all around the world, but they ween't forced into accepting one another as country men), and even WE HAD A DISPUTE wrt representation in Congress. The answer for us was a 2 chamber Congress where those who wanted each state/colony to have equal representation had that in the Senate, and those who wanted it based on population had that in the House. "The West has more seats then us", is not something the framers didn't grapple with, when they were hashing out how Congressional seats would be delegated and to whom....
If we wouldn't have settled on a bi-cameral legislature, you could just see it now, as Road Island might feel they're deprived of the same level of representation that California or New York has (if we went simply the way the House goes), or people in California would complain they have fewer representatives per person, (if it worked only as the Senate now works), citing they have more people then RI, and hence deserve representation proportinate to their population, to feel represented themselves...
Not the Libyans first open election, Micky, although possibly the first that isn't rigged. I was a High School student in Libya (military brat going to international school), when the last election was held. At that time King Idris (Senousi tribe) got tired of Parliment, disolved it and banished political parties. The riots were pretty grim, shooting and all that crap. Not since the Italians were thrown out of power in 1952 (by the U.S.) has there been anything resembling an open election.
jackieboy,
Ah, nice piece of history coming from the fingers of experience. Thanks, I did not know that.
One dead? That warrants a news story? Must be a Really slow news day!
Pacification must precede freedom. A powerful leader with a bull whip is needed in Libya to tame the savagery. Some animals must be declawed before they can be domesticated. But in time Libya will be transformed into a happy place filled with smiles and hugs.
So, if we were back in 1776, and living in England at the time, would you have suggested the same for the colonists? That the people soon to form the US needed to be de-clawed, pacified, and turned into good obediant sheep to be lead by a whip, with heavens forbid no 2nd amendment?
And if such a course of action would have occured, would this country have had the spine to step forward to deal with the issues that came up with WW II (after Pearl Harbor had been bombed)? In point of fact, would Winston Churchill have had the sort of ally he did, and that he could count on, if the colonists had been pacified some 160 or so years earlier? Or might we have ended up in a very different world today, if the allies were to have had a de-clawed United States, which was forced back into submission wrt what England would have liked from a colony, rather then the country we turned into after all was said and done?
It isn't like our history (the Revolutionary war, then a civil war, followed by race riots and the like) was exactly of an entirely peaceful nature. But, and this said, we came a stronger, and arguably better country then we might otherwise have been, had we not been allowed to evolve as such....
I was stationed in Tripoli, Lybia (Wheelus AB) many years ago, and I found the Lybians to be good, caring people that are long overdue some degree of democracy. King Idris was an absolute ruler. Khadafi was an insane tyrant. On this day, I feel good for the people of Lybia. If reglious fanatism doesn't destroy this day, they may have a chance at a more life with a degree of individual freedom. Go Lybia!
One DEAD in Libya? THAT Ain't Right!
Safest Democracy on the Planet! Go LIBYA!
THats What Happens When You Don't Have SPORTS!
I knew IT! Get Rid of Ghadafi and Things are MORE Peaceful!
I Have to Give 1st Prize to LIBYA! Maybe Throw in a Blue Ribbing or TWO!