“Ali Zidan is elected prime minister and is asked to propose a cabinet within two weeks,” Mohammed Megarief, president of the national assembly, said on television.

Ali Zidan, a former career diplomat and a human rights lawyer was elected with 93 votes, securing a majority of those who voted in a poll to determine the country’s leader for a transitional period of around 20 months.

Zidan, who had support from the leading liberal coalition, the National Forces Alliance, also suggested, however, that he was ready to take into account the views of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood in his government, according to Al Jazeera.

“Islam is our belief system and the source for any jurisprudence, and anything against sharia is refused,” he said.

Gaddafi kept Libya broadly secular, but the uprising which toppled him has paved the way for the emergence of both Islamist and more secular factions.

Ali Zidan defected in 1980 while he was serving at the Libyan embassy in India. He was a member of the opposition National Front for the Salvation of Libya, established in 1981 by dissidents abroad. He later became a Geneva-based advocate for human rights in Libya.

The election comes at a demanding time for Libya as it attempts to disarm rival factions and follows the death of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.