Voting underway in historic Libyan elections

Libyans started voting today in the first parliamentary election since last year’s ousting and killing of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi, taking a major step forward in the country’s tumultuous transition to democratic rule.

The election for a 200-seat legislature is being held amid intense regional rivalries, fears of violence and calls for a boycott. However, lines began to form outside polling centres more than an hour before they were scheduled to open in the capital Tripoli.

Policemen and army soldiers were guarding the centres, searching voters as well as election workers.

“I have a strange but beautiful feeling today,” said dentist Adam Thabet, waiting outside a polling centre in the capital Tripoli. “We are free at last after years of fear. We knew this day was coming, but we were afraid it could take long to come.”

Libya’s election is the latest fruit of Arab Spring revolts against authoritarian leaders. It is likely to be dominated by Islamist parties of all shades, a similar outcome to elections held in the country’s neighbours Egypt and Tunisia, which had had their own, though much less bloody, uprisings.

There are four major contenders in the race, ranging from a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated party and another Islamist coalition at one end of the spectrum to a secular-minded party led by a Western-educated former rebel prime minister on the other.

“This is history in the making,” declared 26-year-old medic Farid Fadil as he waited to vote outside a polling centre in Tripoli.

After four decades of Gaddafi’s erratic one-man rule, Fadil like many Libyans was overjoyed at the chance to choose his country’s leaders: “We were ruled by a man who saw himself as the state.”

In the oil-rich east, where there is a thriving autonomy movement, calls for a boycott and pre-election violence have cast a shadow over the vote.

Today protesters torched ballot boxes in 14 out of 19 polling centres in the eastern town of Ajdabiya, according to former rebel commander in the area Ibrahim Fayed.

But in Tripoli, voters were jubilant. Libyans flashed the “V” for victory sign as they entered polling centres. Motorists honked their horns as they drove past to greet the voters lined outside. Others shouted Allahu Akbar, or God is Greater, from their car windows.

“The turnout is extraordinary,” said Mohammed Shady, an election monitor. “Everyone is being very co-operative. They want the day to be a success and it will be.”

The election lines brought together Libya’s women, men, young and children accompanying their parents. There were women in black abayas, or black robes, bearded men, elderly men and women in wheelchairs or using canes to support themselves. Some voters arrived at polling centres waving the Libyan red, green and black flag or wrapping it around their shoulders.

Voters distributed sweets to mark the occasion and women hugged each other or sang as they waited in line. Others chanted “the martyrs’ blood will not go in vain,” a reference to the thousands of anti-regime rebels killed by Gaddafi’s forces. Others held pictures of loved ones killed in last year’s ruinous civil war.

“Look at the lines. Everyone came of his and her own free will. I knew that day would come and Gaddafi would not be there forever,” said Riyadh Al-Alagy, a 50-year-old civil servant in Tripoli. “He left us a nation with a distorted mind, a police state with no institutions. We want to start from zero,” he said, as a woman came out of the polling centre ululating and flashing the purple ink on one of her fingers. The ink is used to prevent multiple voting.

Today’s vote is a key milestone on a nine-month transition toward democracy for the country after a bitter civil war that ended with the capture and killing of Gaddafi in October.

Many Libyans had hoped the oil-rich nation of six million would quickly thrive and become a magnet for investment, but the country has suffered a virtual collapse in authority that has left formidable challenges.

Armed militias still operate independently, and deepening regional and tribal divisions erupt into violence with alarming frequency.

On the eve of the vote, gunmen shot down a helicopter carrying polling materials near the eastern city of Benghazi, the birthplace of the revolution, killing one election worker, said Saleh Darhoub, a spokesman for the ruling National Transitional Council. The crew survived after a crash landing.

Prime Minister Abdurrahim el-Keib vowed the government would ensure a safe vote today, and condemned the election worker’s killing and those who seek to derail the vote.