Islamists Behind in Libya Election

It will be at least a few days before final results from Libya's first election in more than 40 years are in, but early results suggest that a coalition of moderate, Western-leaning groups is ahead of its Islamist rivals. If the alliance led by former rebel prime minister Mahmoud Jibril does manage to defeat the Muslim Brotherhood's bloc, it will mark a shift away from Islamism that stands in contrast to other Arab Spring nations and reflects the different political dynamics in Libya, where the Brotherhood sometimes cooperated with Moammar Gadhafi's regime, the AP notes.

"Anyone with past ties with old regime is hated, even despised," a pro-Islamist Libyan political analyst says. "Any political names associated with the regime are immediately politically burnt by that association." Islamists had predicted their parties would win up to 60% of the seats, but after Saturday's vote, the leader of a party founded by the Brotherhood said it expected to win less than a quarter of the 200 seats up for grabs, reports the New York Times. (More Arab Spring stories.)