By Jamal Adel.
Tripoli, 23 February 2014:
Releasing the full figures for the turnout in Thursday’s Constitutional Committee elections last night, . . .[restrict]the Higher National Elections Commission (HNEC) has reiterated that an attempt to re-run the contest will take place on Wednesday in those polling centres where violence or blockades prevented it happening. If, however, they are disrupted again, the issue will have to be resolved by the General National Congress, HNEC head Nuri Elabbar said.
HNEC did not have the legal authority to call for third round of voting, he explained.
Voting did not take place in 81 polling centres, with the result that altogether 13 seats on the Committee cannot be declared.
Elabbar said that in Kufra and Sebha, where 95 per cent and 97 per cent of polling stations had opened, ballot papers had been prevented from arriving by road.
He said that negotiations with the Amazigh community which boycotted the elections were still at an impasse. However, there were a number of suggestions that had been made to break the deadlock, among them the appointment of Amazigh representatives to the two uncontested Amazigh seats in Zuwara and the Jebel Nafusa.
It has been suggested that the Supreme Amazigh Council be empowered by Congress to appoint them – a move that would, for the first time, give the council official status in Libya.
HNEC figures for Thursday’s elections are:
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