The meeting followed a night of angry protests across the capital, where masked youths set car tyres alight and blocked roads. In both Tripoli and the main eastern city of Benghazi, the cradle of the 2011 uprising, thousands took to the streets to chants of "we want the lights to work". The government "didn't take the electricity crisis seriously", he said, adding that resolving it would take longer than expected. Planning minister Mohamed Zaidani said some $2.96 billion had been spent on the electricity sector since 2013. But voting never took place due to several contentious candidacies and deep disagreements over the polls' legal basis between the rival power centres in the east and west.
