Though it’s been over two months since I returned form a work trip to Libya, I thought I would finally get around to posting some election-related photos I took. Luckily for me, people seem to leave their campaign posters up well after the election, which gives me a random, non representative sample of the type of campaigning done before the GNC election in July. If anybody can add any context to these pictures, or wants to make any corrections, please do so in the comments section. They would be much appreciated.

Most of these pictures were taking in the Hay Andalus district of Tripoli.  An upper class neighborhood, Hay Andalus, like most constituencies, had an individual and proportional tier. The proportional tier was given three seats, though shared with several other areas. Hay Andalus also had it’s own Single Non Transferable Vote (SNTV) tier, of three seats. SNTV systems are notorious for creating weak parties, as well as creating the highest incentive for candidates to cultivate a personal vote. This is in part because the margin of victory needed for a seat is usually very small. In this district, there were 136 candidates competing for three seats. The three top candidates ended up receiving 12,099, 8851, and 6,807 votes respectively.

This pillar was covered with mostly individual candidates, though the purple poster in the middle is for the Salafi’s Al Watan Party. Despite high expectations, Al-Watan won no seats nationally, and came in fifth place in this district (only 3,992 votes, while as a comparison, the National Forces Alliance took just over 30,000).

It wasn’t uncommon to see candidate posters with faces scrapped off, like those below. I’m guessing this was either vandalism from individual Salafis (note above, that the main Salafi party still used a female face in one of it’s own ads), or just someone expressing dissatisfaction with politicians in general. Or I’m reading too much into this and it was simply some punk kids.

The next two photos are ads for the Union For Homeland Party (الاتحاد من اجل الوطن).  The Union won two seats overall and came in seventh place in Hay Andalus, with 2,703 votes. The slogan used in these posters says “New Libya, new faces” which matches the imagery used in the posters. The Union’s leader, Abdul Rahman Swehli from Misrata, was a dissident during Qaddafi’s rule, and advocates and entirely new system that is purged of officials from the old regime. This is relevant as many current figures, even liberal ones such as Mohamed Jibril and Ali Zeidan, have served in Qaddafi’s government at some point in their careers (even though they became opponents).

A billboard for the Justice and Construction Party (حزب العدالة والبناء), which is the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing in Libya. The party finished with the second most party list seats, though significantly less than the secular National Forces Alliance.  Justice and Construction (abbreviated by their Arabic acronym, AB) used the horse imagery in most advertisements I saw.

This was a small sticker for the National Forces Alliance (تحالف القوى الوطنية), of Mohamed Jibril, which won the most party list seats out of any organization.  I actually saw more billboards and signs for them around Martyrs’ Square and on a few highways, but never in a situation where I could take a photo. 

I saw several posters, such as this one for Wafa Al-Sharif, that displayed affiliation with the National Party for Development and Welfare, led by now-Prime Minster Ali Zeidan. (Zedian was elected as an independent in Jufra). This appears to be a party-list poster as there is no mention of candidate number and I couldn’t find Al-Sharif’s name in the district results. It is interesting to see the party emphasizing candidates on their closed party list ads, whereas the Justice and Construction Party took the opposite approach. The party managed to get one party list seat nationally while finishing in 17th place where this picture was taken. The poster was on a main highway, however, so it was likely to have targeted voters throughout Tripoli.

Sign for a candidate running in the SNTV tier.

Here are two signs for the National Movement for Justice and Development. Another party-list ad, these two signs indicate that the party chose to have a women lead their list in this district. There were only three open seats in this district and parties were forced to stagger their lists by gender, as well as placing women at the top of half of their lists nationally.

People in Misrata were unfortunately better at taking their campaign posters down after the election, but I did manage to get this of a candidate, who finished in 63rd out of 117 candidates. Misrata also used SNTV for it’s candidate-based tier, though with a district magnitude of four.