Najat al-Kikhia wins Benghazi poll

Najat Al Kikhia won 80% of the votes in her district A female candidate has gained the most votes in Benghazi\'s first democratic elections in more than four decades, reports the Libya Herald. Only one woman out of the 22 female candidates was elected, but she was resoundingly backed. Not only did Najat Rashid Mansur al-Kikhia top the ballot in District 4, Al-Birka, with more than twice the number of votes of her nearest rival — 7784 in all — she gained more votes than any other candidate in the entire election. She thus also becomes a Benghazi representative in Libya\'s interim government, the National Transitional Council (NTC).
The results were announced Monday evening by the head of Benghazi’s electoral commission, Suleiman Zubi.   He said that 138,312 people had voted .
Forty-one candidates, from the more than 400 who stood, were elected from 11 electoral districts to serve on Benghazi\'s local council.The candidate who received the most votes in each of the districts is due to go on to represent the city at the National Transitional Council (NTC) in Tripoli.
Commenting on his election as one of the 11 council members to go to Tripoli, Khaled Al-Jazwee told the Libya Herald that he felt a “huge responsibility” to live up to the trust bestowed upon him by the people of Benghazi. “Obviously I am very happy to have been elected”, he said, “but this is a huge responsibility, and now I must show the people that I am up to the task”.
 Another new member of the local council, Abdullah Buaod, echoed this sentiment, adding, “I am very pleased with how these elections have gone, because they have shown to the world that Benghazi is a civilised city, capable of holding free and fair elections”.
Speaking to the Libya Herald, Suleiman Zubi, the head of the Benghazi Electoral Commission, said that voter turnout had been between 64-69 per cent. “The turnout for these elections was excellent”, he said, “not only that, but voting passed off peacefully and without a single reported incident”.
 Asked about the possibility of voter fraud, Zubi insisted that there was none. “The way we organised these elections meant there was no opportunity for fraud. For one thing, we had around 1000 election observers from both Libya and international organisations such as the United Nations, the European Union and the National Democratic Institute”.
 In the absence of a permanent Libyan constitution, however, it is still not fully clear what, or how extensive, its powers will be. In particular, questions still need to be answered as to which areas will fall under the local council’s direct control, which will be reserved for the national government in Tripoli, and which a mixture of the two.
Benghazi’s electoral commission supervising the elections announced that appeals can be lodged, starting Tuesday, May 22, and will last for three days.