Benghazi’s Local Elections: A Message of Confidence to the Rest of Libya and the World
On Saturday May 19, Benghazi witnessed a historic moment with successful local elections conducted smoothly and peacefully, with local and international observers expressing their complete satisfaction with the manner and atmosphere the elections were conducted in.
The elections in Libya’s second largest city could give early indications to Libyans’ ability to practice democracy in its best form. International and national observers praised the role of the civic society in the city, and there was also great deal of praise to the Supreme Security Committee that secured the city and elections process on the day and long before that.
Most fascinating were the scenes during the results announcement ceremony which highlighted the joy and happiness of the people, and showed that Libyans were hungry for democracy and freedom. Democracy was portrayed in its best form in Benghazi with opponents greeting each other and wishing best of luck to the winners. Such sentiment proves that the candidates had one goal and one ultimate common purpose, and that was to how best serve the city and the citizens of Benghazi.
Another fascinating result from the Benghazi elections was the winning of female candidate Najat El Kikhia with the highest share of votes of all candidates. Najat who is an associate lecturer in statistics at Benghazi University won the trust of the people in her voting district, and such vote proves that Libyans are prepared to give their trust and vote for a female candidate as much as they would for a male candidate, if that candidate showed competence and ability to represent the aspirations and needs of the people.
http://tweepforum.ly/opinion/benghazis-local-elections-a-message-of-confidence/
Compare with the first "elections" in Iraq.
= new reply since forum marked as read
National Congressional elections are due at the end of June.
Ismael ?@ChangeInLibya
BREAKING: The final number of registered voters for #Libya's constituent assembly elections is 2,712,977 out of 3.5m or 80% participation
Ismael ?@ChangeInLibya
WOW: Final figures: Women make up 47% of #Libya's 2.7million June elecs registered voters. I expected lower. Great to see! #lyelect
It's been a steady stream of good "news", but I hesitate to call it "news" since much of it isn't widely disseminated. New national budget...number of detainees cut in half as the vetting continues...normalized relations across the Maghreb...training sessions for legal professionals...decades old problems flair up but then get set on a path to resolution. There was even some doubt if people would register, because so many didn't have a clue as how to organize an election. Now we know, the registration has worked.
Being now out of the habit of collecting links for some of those news items 
, I'll just grab another small item, a current one:
May 22, 2012 10:43 am by Borzou Daragahi
...
Officials of the company said at a meeting on Thursday that plans for opening the stores were initiated some time ago but were interrupted by revolutions that overthrew Tunisian president Zein el-Abidine Ben Ali and Gaddafi.
“We wanted to expand our business for three years, but since the Tunisian revolution and the Libyan revolution, it has been very difficult for us to commence with our project,” said Emad Bouaasida, director of international development for Monoprix Tunisia, according to the news website Tunisia Live.
...
The uprising badly hurt the Tunisian supermarket chain, which was under the control of the former leader’s family. Some of its stores were vandalised and looted. Income fell from from 10.5m Tunisian dinars ($6.7m) to 5.4m Tunisian dinars. The company currently employees 4,000 people.
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2012/05/22/tunisia-supermarket-expands-to-libya/
I know, I know. It was all about harissa sauce.
