By Adrian
Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent
4:46PM BST 02 Jul 2012
Hundreds of armed men
ransacked the regional headquarters of the national electoral commission in
Benghazi, Libya’s second city, setting fire to voting lists and ballot papers
and looting papers.
Similar raids were
conducted in Tobruk and Bayda, with protesters denouncing Saturday’s election
for a national congress that will govern the country and draft a new
constitution as deliberately skewed against eastern Libya.
Libya’s National Transitional
Council, which has ruled the country since Col Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown
last year, insisted the vote would go ahead.
“All those who
contribute to derailing the electoral process are standing against the wish of
80 per cent of Libyan voters,” the council’s spokesman, Salih Darhub, said.
“Such acts work against
the wishes of those people who languished for years under a dictatorship.”
But with tensions
mounting, it was unclear how the authorities would provide enough security for
the election to go ahead or persuade Libyans in the east to respect the vote.
Saturday’s vote was meant to be epoch-defining, ushering in an
era of democracy that would unite a country large parts of which remain under
the control of militias operating without reference to Tripoli.
But many fear that it could instead entrench the divisions that
are increasingly challenging the foundation of the modern Libyan state, created
when Italy joined together the Western province of Tripolitania with Cyrenaica
in the East and Fezzan in the south.
Many in Benghazi, the capital of Cyrenaica, still harbour deep
distrust for western Libya and their anger has grown after the proposed
composition of the new assembly gave the east 60 seats against 102 for Tripoli
and the west.
With two-thirds of Libyans living in the west, the National
Transitional Council insists that the division of seats reflects demographic
reality. It has also promised that all three provinces will be given equal
representation on the committee that drafts the constitution.
But eastern Libya holds four-fifths of the country’s oil, and
there is anger in the region that most of the profits end up in Tripoli.
Libya’s oil exports this year are expected to earn the country GBP 1 billion.
In March, tribal and political leaders in Benghazi declared
Cyrenaica’s an autonomous region, saying they would only recognise Tripoli as
Libya’s legitimate representative in foreign affairs -- a federal model based
on pre-Gaddafi days.
While appetite for secession remains limited, there are fears
that eastern Libya’s well armed militias could assert their rights violently
and there have been mutterings in Benghazi of a “second revolution”.
