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By Michel Cousins,
Tripoli, 9 June:
Potential candidates who have registered to stand in the elections for the National Conference are being informed . . .[restrict]personally today, Saturday, if they can stand or not, according to Jamal El Zway, head of media at the High National Elections Council (HNEC).
The full list of approved candidates was supposed to have been announced on Tuesday. However, all that was announced by the Integrity and Patriotism Commission which had vetted the candidates, were the numbers. According to its spokesman, Omar Mustafa Habassi, was that out the 2,552 people who had registered as individual candidates, 2,352 had been approved and 200 barred, and out of the 1,927 nominees from political entities standing under the proportional list system, 1,807 had been approved and 120 barred. The names were then handed over to the HNEC. It is not clear why candidates are only being informed today.
Those who have been barred by the Integrity and Patriotism Commission, still have 48-hours in which to appeal. The appeals adjudication will then take a further five days. Only then will the definitive list be produced.
This is seen as further proof that the election will not take place on 19 June, although officials are still pretending it will. It is physically impossible to print and distribute ballot papers in just four days.
Diplomats last week informed Libya Herald that they had been told that the elections would be delayed. No new date, however, had been set, they said.
A press conference is to take place at the HNEC tomorrow afternoon, Sunday, at which it is thought the delay and new polling day will be announced.
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