Libya bans religious, tribal or ethnic parties before June elections

[rug]

By Reuters Staff
April 25, 2012

Libya, preparing for elections in June, has banned parties based on religion, tribe or ethnicity, the government said on Wednesday, and a new Islamist party viewed as a leading contender signalled it would challenge the decision.

National Transitional Council spokesman Mohammed al-Harizy said the council passed the law governing the formation of political parties on Tuesday evening. “Parties are not allowed to be based on religion or ethnicity or tribe,” he told Reuters.

He did not make clear how this would affect a political party formed in March by Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists. The new party was expected to make a strong showing in the election, the first since last year’s overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed popular uprising.

The head of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Development Party said the NTC needed to make it clearer what it meant by banning religious parties. He said this would cause controversy in conservative Libya, whose population of six million is made up almost entirely of Sunni Muslims.

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2012/04/25/libya-bans-religious-tribal-or-ethnic-parties-before-june-elections/

[Lawlbringer]

1. There's a joke about the Republican party in there somewhere

but I just can't put it together without getting too wordy.

[cbayer]

2. Wow! That's huge.

I recently visited Kenya and learned that the reasons the government is so corrupt and runs so poorly is that there are forty tribes and everyone votes along tribal lines.

They never actually vote for who might be the best leader. Total disaster.

[dmallind]

3. An extremely wise but likely unpopular move.

There is certainly enough room to ally a party along these lines without making it definitive and hence subject to the same tribalism. After all, the Republican party is not technically the party of white Christian males, even though it is de facto the same thing as sucha party would be.