Libyan PM Jibril sees elections within eight months

Mahmoud Jibril: assembly would form constitution, interim government, country needs to end reliance on oil; Jibril expected to step down.

By REUTERS
Mahmoud Jibril, prime minister of Libya's rebel NTC 311 (photo credit: REUTERS/Stringer)
Mahmoud Jibril, prime minister of Libya's rebel NTC 311
(photo credit: REUTERS/Stringer)
DEAD SEA, Jordan - Libyans should be allowed to vote within eight months to elect a national council that would draft a new constitution and form an interim government, Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said on Saturday.
After the death of Muammar Gaddafi this week, the priority was to remove weapons from Libyan streets, restore stability and order and begin a process of national reconciliation, Jibril said at the World Economic Forum in Jordan.
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"The first election should take place within a period of eight months, maximum, to constitute a national congress of Libya, some sort of parliament," he said.
"This national congress would have two tasks - draft a constitution, on which we would have a referendum, and the second to form an interim government to last until the first presidential elections are held," said Jibril.
Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) has said it plans to declare the full "liberation" of Libya on Sunday after the killing of Gaddafi by fighters who overran his home town Sirte.
Progress would depend on two things, said Jibril, who said on Oct. 4 he would leave office once anti-Gaddafi forces took control of the whole country.
"First what kind of resolve the NTC will show in the next few days, and the other thing depends mainly on the Libyan people - whether they differentiate between the past and the future," he said.
Jibril said the north African country, which Gaddafi turned into a major energy exporter, needed a vision for finding another source of income because Libya had already consumed 62 percent of its oil.
He warned Libya's next government not to allow politics toinfluence the award of oil contracts, saying: "I can advise thecoming interim government that the economic rule should be therule. It's very dangerous to have contracts based on politics."