By Umar Khan.
Tripoli, 26 June:
Abdurrahman Shater, the former secretary-general of Mahmoud Jibril’s . . .[restrict]National Forces Alliance, is running as an individual candidate for the Hay Al-Andalus district (54) in the upcoming July 7 elections. Shater was appointed secretary-general of the National Forces Alliance when it was formed in March this year.
Contrary to reports, Shater insists that he resigned from the post in May as soon as he filed his candidacy and that he was not sacked. “I resigned from the post simply because the charter of the Alliance prohibits any member of the supreme board to run in the election,” he told Libya Herald.
He was one of the founders of the Libyan Solidarity Party first unveiled in October last year. The party joined Mahmoud Jibril’s alliance in March. At that point Jibril was elected as the head of the party’s executive which had 12 members and Shater was chosen as the secretary-general.
Shater, a journalist with more than 43 years’ experienced, started his own electoral campaign by issuing a booklet that included personal information, articles he had written over the span of last 40 years and views about him by his close colleagues.
Asked whether the given time of 18 days was enough for campaigning, he said it was because there were just the first elections. As to the lack of his campaign material in the constituency, he said it was a tactical move. “We intentionally started slow and now we will gradually start the aggressive phase of the campaigning. I don’t want to be like others who use up ideas in the beginning and are still repeating the same things towards the end of the campaign.”
Shater says he will fully support the independent media as he is aware of its importance. [/restrict]
