TRIPOLI — The killing of an electoral worker and calls for a boycott on the eve of Libya's first vote since the overthrow of longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi raised fears of election violence even as campaigning came to an end Friday for a contest seen as a milestone on the country's bumpy path toward democracy. Saturday's election of a 200-member transitional parliament caps a messy nine-month transition after a ruinous 2011 civil war that ended in October with the death of Gaddafi, whose four-decade rule left the country deeply divided along regional, tribal and ideological lines. The parliament will elect a new transitional government to replace the one appointed by the National Transitional Council that led the rebel side during the eight-month war and held power in its aftermath. Many in Libya's oil-rich east feel slighted by the NTC-issued election laws, purportedly based on population, that allocate their region less than a third of the parliamentary seats, with the rest going to the western region that includes Tripoli and the sparsely-settled desert south. In what it called an attempt to defuse east-west tensions, the NTC Thursday decreed that the new parliament will not be responsible for naming the panel that will draft a new constitution. Instead, the drafters will be directly elected by the public in a separate vote at a later date. But this has not satisfied some in the east, who press for a boycott. “We don't want Tripoli to rule all of Libya,” said Fadallah Haroun, a former rebel commander in the east's regional capital Benghazi. Friday, gunmen shot down a helicopter carrying polling materials near the eastern city of Benghazi, killing one election commission worker, said NTC spokesman Saleh Darhoub. He said the aircraft came under attack while flying over Benina airport on the city's outskirts, and that the crew survived after a crash landing. It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack. The shooting, however, was merely the latest unrest in the messy run-up to the vote. Late Thursday, ex-militiamen shut down three eastern oil refineries — in Ras Lanouf, Brega and Sidr — to press the transitional government to cancel the vote, Haroun said. He said militiamen also have cut the country's main coastal highway linking east to west. Haroun said boycott supporters would take to the streets on election day to “prevent people from voting, because this is a vote that serves those who stole the revolution from us.” He said they would not take up arms but when asked how they would stop voters, he said, “We will see tomorrow.” Many in the west are equally dissatisfied with the decree, saying it will undercut the authority of the new parliament. The vote also will be a test of the strength of Islamist parties, which have gained influence in Libya and other nations following the ouster of authoritarian regimes. — AP
