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Libyans vote in first post-Gaddafi poll

Good turn out amid reports of sabotage, violence in the east

Reuters, Tripoli
Crowds of joyful Libyans, some with tears in their eyes, parted with the legacy of Muammar Gaddafi's dictatorship yesterday as they voted in the first free national election in 60 years.
But in the eastern city of Benghazi, cradle of last year’s uprising but where many now want more autonomy from the interim government in Tripoli, protesters stormed a handful of polling stations and publicly burned hundreds of ballot papers.
Authorities also reported a case of gunmen preventing voters from entering polling stations in the eastern oil port town of Ras Lanuf, but said 94 percent of polling stations around the North African country were up and running normally.
Libyans are choosing a 200-member assembly which will elect a prime minister and cabinet before laying the ground for full parliamentary elections next year
under a new constitution.
Candidates with Islamic agendas dominate the field of more than 3,700 hopefuls, suggesting Libya will be the next Arab Spring country - after Egypt and Tunisia -to see religious parties secure a grip on power.
In Benghazi, protesters
stormed a polling station just after voting started and set fire to hundreds of ballot slips in a public square in a bid to undermine the election's credibility.
Witnesses said at least four polling stations had been hit in such attacks. One man was shot in the arm and taken to hospital with
heavy bleeding after a stand-off between vote boycotters and those in favour of the elections.
Nuri al-Abbar, chairman of the electoral commission, said acts of sabotage, mostly in the east, prevented 101 polling stations from opening.
Yet in the capital Tripoli, voting was smooth.
"I am a Libyan citizen in free Libya," said Mahmud Mohammed Al-Bizamti. "I came today to be able to vote in a democratic way. Today is like a wedding for us."
Polls close at 8:00pm (but meaningful partial results are not due until today and a full preliminary count is not expected until Monday at the earliest.)
On the eve of the vote, interim Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib urged Libyans to turn out en masse to counter those who argue the new assembly will not reflect the will of the country.
Many easterners, whose region is home to the bulk of Libya's oil sector, are angry that the east has been
allotted only 60 seats in the assembly compared with 102 for the west.
The make-up of the congress has been a matter of heated debate, with factions such as the federalist movement calling for more seats.
The outgoing National Transitional Council (NTC) says seats were distributed according to demographics, with 100 going to the west, 60 to the east and 40 to the south.
But factions in the east want an equal split and had threatened to sabotage the vote if this demand is not met.
Libya has not seen elections since the era of the late King Idris, whom Gaddafi deposed in a bloodless coup in 1969.
Also causing concern was the southern area of Kufra in the Sahara desert, where tribal clashes were so fierce that election observers were unable to visit, and there were reports of delays to voting in some places.