By 
In the first parliamentary election in 60 years, about 1.7 million of nearly 2.9 million eligible voters in Libya cast their ballots in an election that has taken five days to complete with the winning party still not announced.A date for a presidential election has not been set. Libya is one of the wealthiest nations on the planet, earning billions in oil revenue daily.
The election was July 3 to July 7. It is a total farce. Although 63 percent of eligible voters went to the polls, they still have no inkling of who their representatives will be in the 200-seat General National Congress.
Eighty seats are set aside for party lists, while the remaining 120 are for individual independent candidates
The list of would-be politicians is staggering. There are 2,501 independent candidates and 142 political associations with 1,206 party candidates. Libya has a population of six million.
Leading the pack is the National Forces Alliance guided by Mahmoud Jibril, Libya's wartime prime minister. Behind the NFA are the Muslim Brotherhood's Justice and Construction Party and the Islamist Al-Watan party. The Libyan Muslim Brotherhood maintains it is not affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
President Barack Obama congratulated Libyans on the vote. He called it "another milestone on their extraordinary transition to democracy."
But democracy is the furthest thought from the minds and plans of Libyan politicians. From Biblical times, their country has always been ruled by dictators, tribal warlords, monarchies or the military. International observers monitoring the current elections see no chance for a change.
Libya is in turmoil and has been even more so since the assassination of dictator Muammar Gaddafi by rebel forces in his home city of Sirte in late October.2011. .Gaddafi and his family had ruled and pillaged the country for 42 years.
Almost every male over the age of 10 carries a weapon of some sort at all times, according to numerous media reports over the past 12 months. Rebels daily are hunting down and murdering former Gadaffi supporters and military personnel, according to the same media reports. There is no national police force. The rebels represent local law and order of which there is little.
Armed militias operate independently, refusing to be brought under the umbrella of a national army. Deepening regional and tribal divisions often erupt into violence.
Whoever wins the elections will have a monumental task ahead. The government is responsible for running hospitals, schools and other public services. All should be well funded, since Libya earns billions in oil revenues.
In reality, however, public facilities are pitiful. The central government has little control over any of them. Each region creates its own solutions on a month-to-month basis.
With the majority of parliament's seats dedicated to individual candidates, even if Jibril's Alliance of National Forces were to claim the largest share of the party seats, it is still not guaranteed of being the dominant force in the legislature
Jibril was a senior official and economist under Gadhafi's regime until he changed sides and joined the rebels after the uprising broke out in 2011. He served as the rebels' interim prime minister for almost eight months.
Jibril himself could not run on the ballot because election laws prevent members of the interim National Transitional Council from running, but he serves as the leader of the coalition that brings together some 40 liberal parties.
