Well the election played out pretty much as expected, with the media coverage of it about as lacklustre as the election itself. Low turnout, but not so bad among registered voters; reporters misunderstood the electoral process; Sporadic violence and one high profile assassination of an inspiring female Libyan human rights activist politician in Benghazi. (Read more on this from AJE here.) This is par for the course given where Libya is at right now. It does seem that many Libyans who voted were motivated to do so by their antipathy for the Brotherhood and Islamist. For more on that read from the NYT here. Tarek Mitri, head of UNSMIL congratulated the HNEC on a well run election, which means as we know that Libyan elections are not bought or stolen at the ballot box which is one of the refreshing aspects about post-Qadhafi politics. For more on the UN dimension click here. Well to sum up, the election does seem to have legitimized Hiftar's movement to some extent and to have re-invigorated the transition process, but also to have highlighted that Benghazi, Darna, Sabha, and elsewhere are motivated entirely by their own local militia dynamics and civic conflicts and that the election or the policies of electoral governance cannot really transcend those dynamics. Such seems to be how things go in an increasingly localized and perpherially-dominated Libya.
The House of Representatives Election