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By Ahmed Elumami.
Benghazi, 23 March 2014:
There will be fresh elections for the 13 seats on the 60-member Constitutional Assembly, . . .[restrict]declared unfilled after polls on 20 February, the General National Congress (GNC) decided today.
Congress spokesman Omar Hemidan said that the members had agreed to giving the High National Election Commission (HNEC) permission to select another date for the contest.
“There was no quorum required to pass the resolution, and it passed by a majority of those who attended the session,” Zliten Congressman Abdullah Jawan, told the Libya Herald.
On 20 February, voting was prevented from taking place in 81 polling centres because of violence, fears of violence, blockades and boycotts. Additionally, there was no attempt to hold elections in the two Amazigh sub-constituencies of Zuwara and Jebel Nafusa where no Amazigh candidates stood.
Attempts to re-hold the disrupted elections six days later on 26 February were equally unsuccessful, because in the areas where there had been boycotts HNEC did not have the authority to deal with the reasons for the boycott and where security was the issue, such as Derna, there was no effort by the authorities to provide it.
Further polling attempts were not possible because under the law governing the Constitutional Assembly poll, HNEC was only allowed one extra try, and it had to be within a week of the original vote.
It is believed that now Congress has agreed to the principle of consensus as demanded by the Amazigh and Tebus, there is a every possibility of them agreeing to new polls. Last week although both appeared dismissive of its agreement to the principle, they left the door open by indicating that if it spelled out what it was agreeing to in detail, they would join the assembly.
For his part, Jawan said that statements made recently by acting Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thinni, who remains the Minister of Defence, were indicators to that he was provide security across the country, in Benghazi, Derna and elsewhere. [/restrict]
