By Ahmed Elumami.
Tripoli, 26 February 2014:
Today’s election re-runs were not able to take place in a number of constituencies that could . . .[restrict]not be secured or were sabotaged by ethnic groups, the head of the High National Elections Commission (HNEC) Nuri Elabbar has said.
Election re-runs did not take place in 13 polling centres in Derna and four in Muruzq, he said, pointing out that, in Murzuk, Tebu groups once again prevented ballot papers from reaching the town.
“The 13 polling centres in Derna did open at all today for security reasons, although the electoral materials were provided,” Manager of HNEC Operation Room Omar Elhashmi Mohammed told the Libya Herald.
Mohammed said that 28 polling centres opened in Obari but four of them were closed by Tebu protesters at 10 am, two further centres closed by 11 am and another two shortly afterwards. Out of 28 polling centres in Obari, only 20 remained open. In Kufra, three centres out of 15 were disrupted by Tebu protesters.
One centre was closed in Sebha, also by Tebu, he said. Another polling station, for displaced Tawergha in Sebha, was moved to Brak Al-Shati to enable voters to cast their ballots in a more stable environment.
Three polling centres in the Tukra district in the Eastern region were also closed following the theft of electoral materials.
There had also been severe delays to the results of the 12 centres in Kufra that managed to successfully hold elections last week, Mohammed said. Because of difficulties with transportation, these took nearly a week to reach the capital, only arriving this morning. [/restrict]