Tripoli: Libya's top politicians have hatched a deal by which the Muslim Brotherhood will lead the government after the country's first free elections on Saturday in almost five decades.
According to The Telegraph, negotiations between the Muslim Brotherhood and a secular-based political movement led by former interim prime minister Mahmoud Jibril have focused on forming a post-election government as soon as the result is declared.
An adviser to Jibril said that the former prime minister was likely to take the post of figurehead president with Mustafa Abu Shagour, currently interim deputy prime minister of the Muslim Brotherhood, becoming the prime minister.
"We need to ensure stronger and more capable leadership soon after the elections," a senior official in the Muslim Brotherhood's Justice and Construction Party said.
"That is what Libyans want, more security and stability and progress being made to improve their day-to-day lives. They don't want deadlock," he added.
Experts also believe that Islamic parties are likely to predominate.
"I'd be surprised if Islamists, from the Brotherhood and other parties, don't secure most of the seats and a great chunk of the vote," Dartmouth University professor Dirk Vandewalle, who's been advising the UN mission here, said.
However, some secular Libyans fear the Brotherhood rising influence, despite promises from the Justice and Construction Party that it won't seek to impose religious views through control of the bureaucracy.
"If the Brotherhood gets in we will see a repeat of what's happening in Tunisia with underhand pressure on women to cover up and raids on art galleries," warned Majid Wanis-Gaddafi, the son of Libya's last prime minister before Gaddafi seized power in 1968.
ANI
First Published: Friday, July 06, 2012, 11:13