By Ashraf Abdul-Wahab.
Tripoli, 22 September 2013:
The High National Election Commission (HNEC) had announced that nominations will shortly open for those who . . .[restrict]wishing to stand for election to the Constitutional Commission. With 20 members each from Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan, the commission, also known as the Committee of 60, will drawn up Libya’s new constitiution.
Candidates may, however, have a long time campaigning. HNEC says that it cannot set a timetable for the elections because of what it claims has been a failure of the Civil Registry authorities to provide some of the necessary data.
“The failure of Civil Registry authorities to provide the commission with citizens’ necessary data has prevented it from being able to give a timetable for the electoral process,” said commission’s chairman Nuri Elabbar. He noted that under the law relating to the elections the commission could not obtain such data by itself.
The Central Committee for Municipal Council Elections appears not to have suffered any such difficulty. Registration to vote has already taken place in Beida and other towns have been ready to follow its lead. Its only impediment to moving to the vote has been waiting to hear from the government what the boundaries of the planned new local municipalities would be. [/restrict]