Libya: Moderates Led by Mahmoud Jibril Winning Landslide Victory over Islamists

The National Forces Alliance (NFA) led by Mahmoud Jibril scored a landslide victory over rival Islamist parties in Libya's historic free national election, partial returns showed on Thursday (Reuters, 12 July).

Counts from across Libya attested to a resounding defeat for the political wing of Libya's Muslim Brotherhood. 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 and the eastern city of Benghazi, the cradle of rebellion against more than four decades of rule by Muammar Gaddafi.

"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 told Reuters.