Libya's Jibril in election landslide over Islamists

Tripoli, 13 Jul – (ANA) - The moderate National Forces Alliance of wartime prime minister Mahmoud Jibril scored a landslide victory over rival Islamist parties in Libya's first free national election in a generation, partial tallies showed yesterday.

Counts from across the country attested to a resounding defeat for the political wing of Libya's Muslim Brotherhood, bucking a trend of success for Islamist groups in other Arab Spring countries such as Egypt and Tunisia.

Final official results are not due until next week. But with a large majority of votes counted, Jibril's alliance had unbeatable leads in Tripoli, the desert south, and the eastern city of Benghazi, the cradle of last year's rebellion against 42 years of Muammar Gaddafi's rule.

"The people saw in Jibril an openness to the rest of the world and they craved this openness after being closed off by Gaddafi," Libyan political analyst Nasser Ahdash said of the Western-educated politician who became the face of last year's uprising. (ANA)

FA/ANA/13 July 2012--------