Closed captioning of: Libyans line up to vote
>>>
in
libya
. voters in tripoli and other cities are casting ballots for members of a new parliament in the first election since the ouster of
moammar gadhafi
. protestors burned ballots and called for a boycott of the vote there.
martin fletcher
is covering the vote from cairo. martin, how is the vote going?
>> reporter:
well, it's going very well. a
big day
in
libya
. imagine 17 months ago the libyans were walking across the desert in rubber sandals carrying a pistol to overthrow
moammar gadhafi
. it succeeded they murder him. and today is what it's all about, the first day in democracy in
libya
, the first election there in almost 60 years. so you can imagine what it means to the people here. most of the people voted today have never voted before in their lives, never even seen a
ballot box
. given those problems, it all went very well. the observers say there's been very little trouble in tripoli. there has been trouble elsewhere, though. there's been severe attacks on some of the polling stations yesterday, friday there was an attack by some gunmen on a helicopter carrying election workers. they killed one person and another person, by the way, a voter was killed just a few minutes ago in the east of the country. so there's been trouble. 101 polling stations could not open today because of the trouble, but the observers there say 94% of all polling stations in
libya
were functioning. they don't know yet what the turnout was. we'll find out soon. but of the 2.8 million voters in
libya
, a country of only 600 million people, it seems that t election has been calm, a great success in democracy so far in
libya
today.
>>
martin, do you have a percentage of those 2.8 that are potential voters? do you get an idea whether it's 50% or because of the passion of the first niem 60 years you're looki ing at 80%, 90% turnout?
>> reporter:
i think it's too early to say. they say it will be a heavy turnout. as i said, it's the first time people have voted, the polls open at
8:00 a.m
., close at
8:00 p.m
. they expect the preliminary results tomorrow, sunday, and final results monday at the earliest. but it does seem that a lot of people in
libya
have been exercising their right to vote for the first time in their lives. what a success for the revolution, alex.
>>
absolutely. nbc's
martin fletcher
in cairo, thank you.
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