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Tripoli, March 11: Elections are to be held for Tripoli Local Council (TLC) by 10 May. Speaking at a press conference on Sunday evening in Tripoli’s City Hall, the deputy chairman of the council, Hisham Krekshi, said a seven-person commission to devise and supervise the process had been appointed.
The head of the commission was named as Salahudeen Mohamed. Other members include Farida Ahmed, Abdurrahman Ali and Samira Muftah.
Tripoli is the latest in a rapidly growing number of Libyan towns and cities to hold elections which, it is generally agreed, all need to take place before elections to the constituent assembly or conference in June.
So far Zuara, the Tripoli suburb of Tajoura, Al-Abyar and Misrata are the only places to have staged local elections. However, Zliten is to hold them on March 20, Benghazi in April and Beida plans them as well, although no date has been set. Last week Derna also announced plans for a poll and Ajdabiya said it would vote“within 45 days”.
Krekshi said candidates in the Tripoli poll would have to stand as independents, not on a party ticket. He also said that the capital’s ten districts would be retained as the voting districts. The overall councillors making up the new council would be decided by the commission, as would the number of councillors per district.
Last month the TLC sent a team to observe the Misrata elections and the work done by the Misrata election commission led by Mohamed Berween. It managed to produce an electoral roadmap from scratch within six weeks. That included registering over 100,000 voters, devising the electoral process, vetting candidates and supervising the actual poll.
“We are in close contact with Misrata. We will take advise from it,” said Krekshi when asked if Tripoli would follow the Misrata model. However, he pointed out that Misrata was a smaller and more close-knit society than Tripoli.
He also said that it had been relatively easy vetting candidates there because there were no pro-Qaddafi elements in the city. It was different in Tripoli. “No one with blood on their hands” would be allowed to stand, he said. However everyone would be allowed to vote. “We will not discriminate.”
Existing interim councillors would be able to stand for election, Krekshi said.
Asked if he himself had decided to stand, he said that he had not yet decided. [/restrict]
