Libyans head to the polls, but what does the future hold?

Libya’s parliamentary elections on Wednesday were another waypoint in the country’s transition away from the 40-year rule of Muammar Qaddafi.

Whether this transition ends in Libya becoming a unified democracy, a divided state, or in all-out anarchy is unclear.

Militias initially formed to battle Qaddafi’s forces have been the true power holders since the dictator’s removal and killing in 2011. The notion that the Libyan government controls the country is not even mildly believable.

Still, most Libyans want democracy and Wednesday’s vote was about maintaining the framework for a future state.

The new parliament, which will be called the House of Representatives, replaces the General National Congress (GNC), which was elected in July 2012 in Libya’s first national vote following Qaddafi’s overthrow.

There are few expectations that Wednesday’s vote will be vastly transformative. Voter turnout was low. The results are unlikely to be known for days, if not longer. Some areas of the country may even need to redo the vote.

Whether the candidates will accept the outcome is another question, and a factor that could delay the establishment of the new parliament.

Once the parliament is eventually established, Libya will turn to writing its first post-Qaddafi constitution. Then, it is likely that previous calls for regional autonomy will increase. Some say that Libya should be divided into three self-governing areas going by their historical names: Cyrenaica in the east, Tripolitania in the north-west, and Fezzan in the south-west. Libyans from different parts of the country will demand rights, resources, and religion enshrined in the constitution, but their desires might not always overlap.

The parliament will have to contend with these demands, along with the new challenge of General Khalifa Haftar, a former Qaddafi-era military officer-turned-rebel who has established himself in eastern Libya.

Gen Haftar’s backers, along with his connections to some of Libya’s top politicians, are not clear.

He claims to be a nationalist who aims to counter Libya’s Islamists, who were powerful both within the GNC and among some militia groups. Blamed by some for the unrest, the Islamists are not expected to perform well in the parliamentary elections.

In a bid to gain power, Gen Haftar might be focusing on countering the Islamists as, at least in part, a strategy to gain the sympathies of Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Washington, regional powers concerned by the chaos of the post-Arab Spring Middle East and the rise of Islamist forces.

This means the new parliament will need to move fast. If it takes too long to begin functioning, Gen Haftar might become an attractive option for these powers to support, if only as a hedge against further anarchy.

Indeed, there is a real opportunity for the parliament to set a course that prevents Libya from being divided by regions and split, roughly, into Islamist and nationalist camps, with the country’s various minority groups forgotten.

Whether it will achieve the consensus to do this remains to be seen.