By Moutaz Ali.
Tripoli, 22 May 2014:
Elections for the House of Representatives to replace the General National Congress will take place in . . .[restrict]five weeks’ time, a senior official at the Higher National Elections Commission has told the Libya Herald.
“The 25 June is confirmed as date of the House of Representatives election,” said the official, who did not want to be named. “Ignore all other sources. HNEC will announce the date formally tomorrow,” he stated last night.
There has been confusion as to both the date and who originally decided on it.
On Tuesday, it was reported by the Libya news agency Lana that the President of Congress, Nuri Abu Sahmain, had disclosed that he had been told by the head of HNEC, Emad Al-Sayah, that the date for the poll would be 25 June. However, HNEC had earlier said that elections to a new legislature would be logistically impossible before August. HNEC then said 25 June was just one of a number of dates it was considering, and making it clear that it had not made any declaration about the date.
Various reports stated that the decision had came from Congress on Tuesday. But Congress did not officially meet that day because it was inquorate.
The decision is for HNEC to make.
For its part, the government has said it wants the elections by 15 August. [/restrict]
