Pro-Islamist elected Libya assembly chief

LIBYA: Libya's new national assembly late Thursday elected as its president,Mohammad Yousuf Maqrif, a staunch opponent of Moamer Kadhafi's overthrown regime who is seen as being pro-Islamist.

Maqrif, who had led the Libyan National Salvation Front that grouped exiled opponents of Kadhafi, won with 113 votes in the General National Congress (GNC) against liberal independent Ali Zidane, who got 85.

Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) on Wednesday handed power to the new assembly, elected July 7, in a symbolic move marking a peaceful transition after the overthrow of Kadhafi's 40-year dictatorship in last year's uprising.

Megaryef, born in 1940 in the eastern city of Benghazi, was elected to the GNC under the flag of his grouping, renamed the National Front Party. The poll for leadership of the new congress was broadcast live on Libyan television.

Five initial candidates were whittled down to two in a runoff vote, The new GNC president, an economist with a British doctorate in finance, had held leading posts under the Kadhafi regime in the 1970s.

In 1980, he resigned as ambassador to India to join the opposition in exile and co-founded the National Salvation Front. AFP