Elections for a General National Congress (GNC) were held in
Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...
on 7 July 2012, having been postponed from 19 June.
They were the first elections since the
overthrow and
death
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
of longtime ruler
Muammar Gaddafi a year earlier, the first free national elections since
1952
Events January–February
* January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses.
* February 6
** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...
,
[ and only the second free national elections since Libya gained independence in 1951.
Once elected, the ]General National Congress
The General National Congress or General National Council (GNC; ar, المؤتمر الوطني العام, Berber: Agraw Amuran Amatay) was the legislative authority of Libya for two years following the end of the First Libyan Civil War. It w ...
was to appoint a Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
and Cabinet.[ The GNC was originally to be charged with appointing a Constituent Assembly to draw up Libya's new constitution in an interim period of 18–22 months before a constitutional referendum and new elections on that basis, but the ]National Transitional Council
The National Transitional Council of Libya ( ar, المجلس الوطني الإنتقالي '), sometimes known as the Transitional National Council, was the ''de facto'' government of Libya for a period during and after the Libyan Civil War ...
(NTC) announced on 5 July that the Assembly would instead be directly elected at a later date.[
Despite threats of a boycott, a majority of Libyans (61.58%) cast a ballot. However, the election was marred by violence, protests and a number of deaths.
]
Electoral system
A draft election law was published on 1 January 2012 on the website of the High National Election Commission
The High National Election Commission is a body created in Libya for organising elections following the 2011 Libyan Civil War, starting in 2012.
Creation
The High National Election Commission (HNEC) was involved in organising the 2012 Libyan p ...
(HNEC), after which public comments were accepted. The draft law proposed electing 200 representatives, of which at least 10% should be women, unless fewer than 10% of candidates were women. Members of the NTC and ''Jamahiriya
The Third International Theory () was the style of government proposed by Muammar Gaddafi in the early 1970s, on which his government, the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, was officially based. It was partly inspired by Isl ...
'' government members, including relatives of Muammar Gaddafi, were barred from running.
The second draft abolished the women's quota and allowed local NTC council members to run in the election; it also changed the electoral system from countrywide to constituency-based. Following further protests against restrictions for dual nationals and other issues, the release of the electoral law was again postponed to 28 January 2012. The NTC also sought the input of the Libyan Women's Platform for Peace, who had proposed an alternative electoral law and criticized the official draft on four key points relating to dual nationals, lack of a women's quota, inadequate countermeasures against corruption and the risk of incentivizing tribal party formation.
A new electoral law was finally drafted on 28–29 January 2012. The election system will be a form of parallel voting
Parallel voting is a type of mixed electoral system in which representatives are voted into a single chamber using two or more different systems, most often first-past-the-post voting (FPTP) with party-list proportional representation (PR). It ...
, with 64 constituency seats (with independent candidates only) and 136 list seats for party lists
An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can ...
. Lists will have to alternate between male and female candidates, in effect ensuring a women's quota. The age required to stand for election was lowered to 21 years, and citizens with dual nationality will be allowed to vote and run in the election. Further changes were later made, changing the ratio to 120 constituency seats and 80 list seats, reportedly in an attempt to reduce the Muslim Brotherhood's influence in the new parliament. The 120 constituency seats would be elected from 69 constituencies, whilst the 80 list seats would be elected in 20 constituencies.[
]
Voter registration
Registration of voters, parties participating in elections and independent candidates started at 1 May, and was due to finish on 14 May. However, following a call for a boycott of the process by the Council of Cyrenaica, which is seeking autonomy for parts of eastern Libya around the city of Benghazi, the deadline was extended until 21 May. In total 2,865,937 voters, or 80% of the estimated 3 million to 3.5 million electorate, registered for the elections.[ The registration process was supervised by the ]United Nations Support Mission in Libya
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) is a United Nations (UN) advanced mission in Libya, created in the aftermath of the Libyan Civil War. UNSMIL is a political mission, not a military mission. The main elements of its mandate def ...
.
Minority groups, such as the Tawergha
Tawergha (Berber: ⵜⴰⵡⴻⵔⵖⴰ, ar, تاورغاء), also transliterated ''Tawargha'', ''Tawarga'', ''Tauorga'', ''Taworgha'', ''Tawurgha'' or ''Torghae'', is, as of May 2021,Murray, Rebecca"One Year Later, Still Suffering for Loyalty to ...
ns, who had been accused of supporting former leader Muammar Gaddafi, said that the election was futile as they are marginalised. They also added that voter registration was difficult. Yet about 90 percent of Tawerghans living in Janzour
Janzur or Janzour ( ar, جَنْزُور ), also known as Zanzur, is a city in north-western Libya, situated on the Libyan coastline of the Mediterranean Sea, located in the west of the capital Tripoli, and East of Az-Zawiya. Residents of this ...
Naval Academy
A naval academy provides education for prospective naval officers.
See also
* Military academy
A military academy or service academy is an educational institution which prepares candidates for service in the officer corps. It normally pro ...
refugee camp registered to vote.
Campaign
A total of 374 party lists registered to contest the 80 party list seats, together with 2,639 candidates for the 120 constituency seats. The four parties that were expected to dominate the election are the National Front Party, the Justice and Construction Party, the National or Homeland Party and the National Forces Alliance. The National Front Party is linked to the National Front for the Salvation of Libya
The National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL) was a political opposition group active during the rule of the Gaddafi regime in Libya. It was formed in 1981 and called for major liberalising reforms such as democratic elections, a free p ...
(NFSL), a former anti-Gaddafi resistance group formed in the 1980s. It is led by Mohamed el-Magariaf, an intellectual based in Eastern Libya
Cyrenaica ( ) or Kyrenaika ( ar, برقة, Barqah, grc-koi, Κυρηναϊκή παρχίαKurēnaïkḗ parkhíā}, after the city of Cyrene), is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between ...
. The Justice and Construction Party is the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya. The Homeland Party is an Islamist party as well, led by the Islamic cleric Ali al-Sallabi
Dr. Ali Muhammad al-Sallabi, or ''al-Salabi'' ( ar, علي محمد الصلابي; born 1963 in Benghazi) is a Muslim historian, religious scholar and Islamist[Abdelhakim Belhadj
Abdelhakim Belhaj (or Belhadj; ar, عبد الحكيم بلحاج, nom de guerre: Abu Abdallah Assadaq) (born 1 May 1966) is a Libyan politician and military leader. He is the leader of the Islamist al-Watan Party and former head of the Trip ...]
, the former emir of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group
The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), also known as ''Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya'' ( ar, الجماعة الإسلامية المقاتلة بليبيا), was an armed Islamist group. Militants participated in the 2011 Lib ...
(LIFG). The National Forces Alliance is a liberal umbrella coalition around ex-interim prime minister Mahmoud Jibril
Mahmoud Jibril el-Warfally ( ar, محمود جبريل الورفلي), also transcribed Jabril or Jebril or Gebril (28 May 1952 – 5 April 2020), was a Libyan politician who served as the interim Prime Minister of Libya for seven and a half mon ...
, who himself did not run for a seat in the GNC.
The Libyan Popular National Movement, a political party supporting the policies of Gaddafi, was banned from participating in the elections.
Conduct
Voting was disrupted in some parts of the country, with 6% of the 6,629 polling stations unable to open normally.[ However all but eight polling stations managed to open up for voters during the day and the remaining eight, including two in the ]Kufra
Kufra () is a basinBertarelli (1929), p. 514. and oasis group in the Kufra District of southeastern Cyrenaica in Libya. At the end of nineteenth century Kufra became the centre and holy place of the Senussi order. It also played a minor role in ...
area, which had seen clashes between Toubous
The Toubou or Tubu (from Old Tebu, meaning "rock people") are an ethnic group native to the Tibesti Mountains that inhabit the central Sahara in northern Chad, southern Libya and northeastern Niger. They live either as herders and nomads or a ...
and government forces, opened the following day.[Election: 1.7 million Libyans voted; polling continues in 8 centres today]
, ''Libya Herald'', 8 July 2012 In the Benghazi area a polling station was attacked by activists seeking autonomy for the east of the country and an election official was killed by a gun attack on a helicopter carrying voting materials on the day before the election.[Libya election: Historic vote amid tensions]
, BBC News, 7 July 2012 In eastern Libya former rebels closed five oil terminals at Brega, Ra's Lanuf
Ras Lanuf ( ( ar, راس لانوف , also: ''Ra’s al-Unūf'' )) is a Mediterranean town in northern Libya, on the Gulf of Sidra. The town is also home to the Ra's Lanuf Refinery, completed in 1984, with a crude oil refining capacity of . The oil ...
and Sidra for 48 hours in an attempt to disrupt the elections.[ In Ajdabiya a pro-federalism protester was shot dead by locals when he tried to steal a ballot box from a polling station. Officials with the HNEC were denied access to Bani Walid by tribal Gaddafi loyalists who control the city, and could not monitor the voting process.
Around 1.7 million of 2.8 million registered voters participated in the elections.][
]
Results
According to first counts, the liberal National Forces Alliance did well in the northern areas except Misrata, whereas the race was more even in the south. The other key contenders were the Islamic Justice and Construction Party, which came in second, and Al-Watan, which in the end won no seats at all.
On 17 July, the High National Election Commission
The High National Election Commission is a body created in Libya for organising elections following the 2011 Libyan Civil War, starting in 2012.
Creation
The High National Election Commission (HNEC) was involved in organising the 2012 Libyan p ...
announced provisional results. In the 80 proportional seats, Mahmoud Jibril's National Forces Alliance (NFA) received 48.1%, winning 39 seats. This was followed by the Justice and Construction Party (JCP), which received 10.3% and 17 seats and third was the National Front Party with 4.1% and three seats. The Union for the Homeland
The Union for the Homeland ( es, Unión por la Patria, UP) is a centre-left political and electoral coalition of Peronist political parties in Argentina, formed to compete in the 2023 general election. The coalition is a successor to the previo ...
and the National Centrist Party
National Centrist Party ( ar, التيار الوطني الوسطي) is a parliamentary political party in Libya, launched by former interim oil minister, Ali Tarhouni, on 23 October 2011. It is a centrist political movement, with bases on demo ...
also took two seats, as did the Wadi Al-Hayah Party for Democracy and Development. Fifteen other parties won one party list seat each.
The affiliation of the 120 independents is obscure but the election for Prime Minister gave some indication: in the first round Mahmoud Jibril (NFA) got 86 votes, Mustafa Abushagur (independent) got 55 votes and Awad Barasi (JCP) got 41 votes. Then Abushagur defeated Jibril with 96 to 94. It is estimated that 25 independents are associated with the NFA, 17 with Justice and Construction, and 23 are Salafis
The Salafi movement or Salafism () is a reform branch movement within Sunni Islam that originated during the nineteenth century. The name refers to advocacy of a return to the traditions of the "pious predecessors" (), the first three generati ...
.
References
External links
High National Election Commission
{{Authority control
Elections in Libya
Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...
2012 in Libya
July 2012 events in Africa
Election and referendum articles with incomplete results