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TRIPOLI: Libya is set to hold rare municipal elections on Saturday, in a ballot seen as a test of democracy in a nation still plagued by division and instability.
Key eastern cities — including Benghazi, Sirte and Tobruk — have rejected the vote, highlighting the deep rifts between rival administrations.
The UN mission in Libya, UNSMIL, called the elections “essential to uphold democratic governance” while warning that recent attacks on electoral offices and ongoing insecurity could undermine the process.
“Libyans need to vote and to have the freedom to choose without fear and without being pressured by anyone,” said Esraa Abdelmonem, a 36-year-old mother of three.
“These elections would allow people to have their say in their day-to-day affairs,” she said, adding that it was “interesting to see” how the areas affected by the clashes in May would vote.
Since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi, Libya has remained split between Tripoli’s UN-recognized government, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah and its eastern rival administration backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
Khaled Al-Montasser, a Tripoli-based international relations professor, called the vote “decisive,” framing it as a test for whether Libya’s factions are ready to accept representatives chosen at the ballot box.
“The elections make it possible to judge whether the eastern and western authorities are truly ready to accept the idea that local representatives are appointed by the vote rather than imposed by intimidation or arms,” he said.
Nearly 380,000 Libyans, mostly from western municipalities, are expected to vote.
Elections had originally been planned in 63 municipalities nationwide — 41 in the west, 13 in the east, and nine in the south — but the High National Elections Commission (HNEC) suspended 11 constituencies in the east and south due to irregularities, administrative issues and pressure from local authorities.
In some areas near Tripoli, voting was also postponed due to problems distributing voter cards.
And on Tuesday, the electoral body said a group of armed men attacked its headquarters in Zliten, some 160 kilometers east of Tripoli.
No casualty figures were given, although UNSMIL said there were some injuries.
UNSMIL said the attack sought to “intimidate voters, candidates and electoral staff, and to prevent them from exercising their political rights to participate in the elections and the democratic process.”
National elections scheduled for December 2021 were postponed indefinitely due to disputes between the two rival powers.
Following Qaddafi’s death and 42 years of autocratic rule, Libya held its first free vote in 2012 to elect 200 parliament members at the General National Congress.
That was followed by the first municipal elections in 2013, and legislative elections in 2014 that saw a low turnout amid renewed violence.
In August that year, a coalition of militias seized Tripoli and installed a government with the backing of Misrata — then a politically influential city some 200 kilometers east of Tripoli — forcing the newly elected GNC parliament to relocate to the east.
The UN then brokered an agreement in December 2015 that saw the creation of the Government of National Accord, in Tripoli, with Fayez Al-Sarraj as its first premier, but divisions in the country have persisted still.
Other municipal elections did take place between 2019 and 2021, but only in a handful of cities.