Nine months after the death of Muammar Qaddafi, Libyans went to vote for the first time since 1965, a major step towards a more pluralistic Libya. The country held the free and fair elections in a state of relative peace and public enthusiasm. Despite 40 years of dictatorship, little training in participatory policy, low levels of education, and fragmented politics, Libyans themselves ensured the success of the elections by flocking to the polls. In the eastern provinces, supporters of federalism—a controversial call to grant Libyan provinces greater autonomy from the capital—tried to undermine the electoral process by attacking some polling stations, yet in all cases except one, were turned away by newly created security forces as well as by voters who stood for their rights. That’s the glass-half-full view of the Libyan election, and it’s important. But the glass-half-empty view matters as well.

For all the reasons to celebrate Libya’s election, many in the West might be overestimating the importance of the presumed electoral victory of the secularists and liberals, led by Mahmoud Jibril, who had served as interim prime minister of the revolutionary transitional government during the 2011 conflict. As Jibril himself has stated, calling his party secularist and liberal is a mistake. His is chiefly a nationalist movement.… [Furthermore], this election was actually only for the 80 seats in the new, 200-person legislative assembly that are chosen by voting for party lists rather than individual candidates. The other 120 seats are reserved for independent candidates; no one knows exactly what affiliation they will align themselves with after being elected.…

It’s still not clear exactly what Libyans were voting for. The roadmap for Libya’s political transition, established in August 2011, said that the election of a Constituent Assembly would be held within a year. This assembly was supposed to appoint a government and write a new constitution. According to the plan, Libyans would then vote for a parliament or house of representatives as described in the hypothetical new constitution. The winners of that election would then form the first definitive, non-transitional government. But is that still the plan?

A few months ago the National Transitional Council (NTC), which has governed Libya since the first few weeks of the revolt in 2011, announced that the Constituent Assembly would not draft the constitution itself but instead appoint a 60-member committee to draft it. The members of this committee were supposed to be chosen from outside the assembly and represent the country’s three geographic regions of Libya—Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan—in equal numbers. Yet, a few weeks ago, the NTC changed policy again at the last moment, declaring that the members of the constitutional committee would not be appointed by the assembly but directly elected by the people, though it’s not clear when. Confused? So are Libyans.…

A successful election is just the start of dealing with one of Libya’s most important challenges right now: national unity. Regional and local claims and jockeying for power threaten to undermine the legitimacy of and support for the national government. A few thousand inhabitants of the eastern provinces are calling for a federalist state, if not of outward secession.… [This] could easily…split the government and the people, thus slowing or even reversing Libya’s progress toward stability.

Most Libyans, as well as Western nations, are rightly happy with Libya’s progress toward becoming a stable, unified, democratic state. But if they want progress to continue, they’ll all have to work together.