About 789,297 Libyans have registered to vote in the upcoming municipal elections across 68 Libyan municipalities, the Libyan Central Committee for Municipal Council Elections (CCMCE) announced on Thursday.
The registration statistics of the CCMCE showed that 491,148 men and 298,149 women registered on the committee’s website.
In December 2018, the CCMCE began voter registration after poll successes in Bani Walid and Derj, southwestern Libya, last September. However, the exact date of election has not been determined thus far.
The committee earlier said the municipal councils in different regions of Libya would conclude its mandate by the end of last year.
The committee’s program consists of three main stages; the first is to start updating existing voter registration in the municipal councils, whose mandate has expired, in addition to the newly established ones, bringing the total to 71 municipalities.
The second stage includes the completion of electoral lists in accordance to the laws governing this process, opening the door for candidates to apply.
In the third stage of the program, the committee will announce the initial and final lists of candidates, and set timelines for election campaigns until the polling day.
Libya remains divided between the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), based in Tripoli and led by Faiez Sarraj, and a rival administration in the east led by Commander Khalifa Haftar that has support from Egypt, Russia and the UAE.
Municipal elections will pave the way for Libya’s democratic process and presidential elections, which was originally set for late 2018. However, the date was abandoned under a new initiative led by the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) to hold them in spring 2019.
