Libya politics: Set for a landslide

The National Forces Alliance (NFA), a broad coalition of political parties, civil society organisations and independent figures, led by Mahmoud Jibril, has taken the lead in Libya’s first free election. Partial results show that the Muslim Brotherhood, which won elections in neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia, was unable to repeat its success in Libya.

The Higher National Election Commission has not yet published the complete results of voting on July 7th, but all signs point to a landslide victory for the NFA. The latest tally shows the coalition to have won four times more votes than the Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction Party (JCP) in party-list voting—200,938 to 50,381. The JCP may yet close the gap given that independent candidates affiliated with the party will also have won seats and results from Tripoli and Benghazi, the country’s two largest cities, have not been released yet. Individual candidates have been allocated 120 seats in the 200-member General National Congress with the remainder going to political parties.

In the lead

The NFA came first in six out of eight electoral districts (one of which it did not contest), including Tobruk, Sebha, Zliten, Tarhouna, Janzour and Al Maya. Its weakest performance was in the western city of Misurata, where it came fourth. The JCP came second in Tobruk, Misurata, Zliten, Tarhouna and Janzour and third in Sebha. It secured first place in the central district of Wadi al-Shati where the NFA did not run. The Brotherhood has insisted that it could yet win the election. Speaking to Reuters, the leader of the JCP, Mohammed Sowan said the party was “almost certain that [it] has the majority in the independent seats”. This seems unlikely, however.

Whereas in Egypt and, to a far lesser extent, Tunisia, the Muslim Brotherhood had the advantage of existing grassroots networks, in Libya the group had to start from scratch along with all of the country’s other new political factions. Suspicion of regional ties to Egypt and Qatar also worked against Islamist parties in the election. Al Watan, a party established by Abdel Hakim Belhadj, a former member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group who served as the head of the Tripoli Military Council, also performed below expectations, securing just over 17,000 votes.

Not secular

Given the explosion in the number of political parties that emerged ahead of the election, the NFA will have benefited from the fact that Mr Jibril is a well-known figure. A US-educated economist with a PhD in political science from the University of Pittsburgh, he returned to Libya in 2007 to head the National Economic Development Board (NEDB), an initiative pushed by Saif al-Islam Qadhafi. Mr Jibril defected from the Qadhafi regime in February 2011 to join the rebellion in Benghazi and was instrumental in garnering international support for the revolutionaries. He went on to become the National Transitional Council’s de facto prime minister, resigning from his post in late October 2011 in keeping with a pledge by members of the NTC’s executive not to participate in the next government. His latter days in office were marred by accusations of nepotism and that he was trying to grab too much power.

Mr Jibril who is often described as a liberal, has stressed that the NFA is not secular, an important distinction in religiously-conservative Libya. Emphasising a role for religion in the state could help him secure the broad coalition government that he has called on Libya’s 150 parties to consider.

Second chance

It is not yet clear whether Mr Jibril will seek the role of prime minister. Prior to resigning from the NTC’s executive committee in October 2011, he indicated that governing Libya had become too difficult, telling Time magazine that “the political struggle requires finances, organisation, arms and ideologies…I am afraid I don’t have any of this.” The country’s economic situation has undoubtedly improved since then—oil production has recovered to near pre-conflict levels and most international sanctions have been lifted —but security remains a problem as fighting between rival tribal groups and militias continues to erupt sporadically. Recently, concerns over militant Islamist activity have also risen as a result of attacks on a number of foreign targets. Many hurdles still lie ahead for Libya, but an elected legislature and government should be in a better position to tackle them.