Libya Elections: Liberal Alliance Surging in Initial Results

The preliminary results in Libya’s national assembly election suggest a liberal alliance headed by Western-educated economist Mahmoud Jebril is edging out more conservative Islamist parties.

It’s been a pretty consensual campaign, some would even say dull. In Tunisia, you had a clear divide between the secularists and the Islamists. In the Libyan campaign you had no such divide.”

This weekend, Jebril called on all of Libya’s political parties to “come all together in one coalition, under one banner… to reach a compromise, a consensus on which the constitution can be drafted and the new government can be composed.”

Jebril has criticized the media’s use of the label “liberal” to describe his coalition, and calls his alliance inclusive rather than ideological. It’s a sign the competing parties may be drawing closer together.

The post-campaign looks pretty much like the campaign looked like, which is the parties are competing but without any clear political fault lines between them.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: The political chaos in Egypt contrasts with the relative clarity emerging after elections in neighboring Libya. Voters there went to the polls this weekend to elect a National Assembly. This was the first free national election in Libya in six decades. Initial results suggest the moderate Alliance of National Forces is leading. That’s an umbrella organization of fifty small political parties. Correspondent Marine Olivesi is in Tripoli where she’s following the results.

Marine Olivesi: In the very first preliminary results we’ve had so far the moderate party are ahead, especially in the main towns along Libya’s coast.

Mullins: OK. So if those preliminary results hold true for the for the rest of Libya, where there is apparently about a sixty-five percent turnout of the population, it looks as if Libya might be bucking the regional trend of voting-in Islamists candidates. That’s what happened in Egypt and Tunisia and other places. Is it too early to say that the Islamist Party, affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, is not going to gain control?

Olivesi: Yeah, we can probably predict that they won’t get the largest share of the vote, but what has been clear throughout the campaign is that it’s been a pretty consensual campaign, some would even say dull, and all agree on the broad lines of democratic principles and human rights that should be enshrined in the next constitution. So unlike in Tunisia and Egypt, where, in Tunisia, you had a clear divide between the seculars and the Islamists, in the Libyan campaign you had no such divide. And yesterday the leader of the Alliance of National Forces, Mahmoud Jebril, called for a broad coalition to form Libya’s next government. And even the Muslim Brotherhood party has recognized the advance in the polls of the Alliance. So the post-campaign looks pretty much like the campaign looked like, which is the parties are competing, but without any clear political fault-lines between them.

Mullins: You mentioned Mahmoud Jebril, who is the founder of this coalition. This is a man who spent time here in the United States. He got his doctoral degree at the University of Pittsburgh. He apparently taught there as well. What is the appeal, at least to him or to his coalition? And is it in any way an opposition to what Libyans are hearing from the Islamic parties, from those who are aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood?

Olivesi: Well, Mahmoud Jebril is an economist who taught in the US, returned to Libya, and was reintegrated to Gaddafi’s regime in the years 2000s when Muammar Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, tried to modernize the regime. But he sided with the revolution in it’s very early hours in February, 2011 and he was instrumental in getting the National Transitional Council recognized on the international level.

Mullins: Marine, since you have covered so much of what’s transpired in the past year, I wonder if you can tell us,in terms of the Arab Spring and being right now in Libya where there was so much violence, what’s it’s like to be there and what Libyans are telling you now?

Olivesi: In Tripoli today, it just feels like a capital where everything is open until quite late at night. You have traffic jams all the time. It’s a very vibrant town and the scenes actually that we saw on Saturday night in Tripoli were very similar to those we witnessed right after the fall of Tripoli and an ecstatic crowd and so much joy actually back on the streets and hundreds of families waving flags and chanting. And it’s interesting to see that Libyans, at least a lot of people in Tripoli, still feel as good about the new regime and the change as they did last summer.

Mullins: OK. Thank you very much for the latest from Tripoli, Libya. Correspondent Marine Olivesi, thank you again.

Olivesi: You’re very welcome.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

This project was made possible by a fellowship from the French-American Foundation-United States. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of the French-American Foundation or its directors, employees or representatives.