Tripoli, 1 May:
Voter and candidate registration for the 19 . . .[restrict]June elections to the National Congress started today, Tuesday. Some 1,450 voter registration centres opened their door for the first time in towns and cities across the country despite the May Day public holiday. There are 220 centres in Tripoli alone, many of them in schools.
There are 13 candidate registration centres, one for each of the 13 mega-constituencies into which Libya has been divided.
Queues formed in the centres, and people quietly waited with their identity cards in hand, to register and finger print their forms as part of the process.
Outside, across the country, people in shops, at petrol stations and elsewhere were being handed a leaflet from the HNEC encouraging them to register. In they did not do so, the leaflet read, they would not be able to vote.
Nuri Elabbar, head of the Higher National Electoral Commission (HNEC) said the first day was “positive start” and that everyone was happy with what was happening.
There were some light-hearted complaints about the process. “It would have been easier if this leaflet had been handed out a couple of weeks ago,” said Hani Benali just after he was given one at a downtown petrol station in Tripoli. Perhaps more importantly, several people spoken to by Libya Herald yesterday could not say where their nearest registration centre was. Given the extremely short period for registration, that could affect registration numbers.
The registration was not without the unexpected. One centre in a Tripoli school closed after the arrival of revolutionaries in pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns.
The HNEC estimates there are 3.4 million Libyans eligible to vote and believes two million will register by the time registration ends on 14 May. Once the registration is complete, voter lists will be published. People will have two days to challenge them. A definitive list will then be produced within five days.
Meanwhile, it has been announced that in Zliten voter registration for the local elections will start on 7 May with the election on 7 June. Given that Zliten voters will have to register twice and in separate places, once for the local election, once for the national one, the potential for confusion is obvious.
Registration for Tripoli local elections was due to have started last month and the vote was supposed to take place by May 10, but the process seems to have fallen to pieces. Nothing seems to be happening and no one from the Tripoli electoral committee appears to want to talk about it. However, given the national elections and the potential clash in the country’s largest city, it may be a blessing that nothing is happening at present.
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