The UN envoy for Libya will launch a new initiative to hold elections this year by setting up a high-level organizing committee, it said today, in an effort to break a year-long deadlock that risks a return to armed conflict.
Addressing his Security Council UNAbdullahi Batili stressed that the committee will bring together representatives of political institutions, political and tribal leaders, civil society groups, security officials and others.
“Libya’s political class is going through a major crisis of legitimacy. One could say that most institutions lost their legitimacy years ago,” he said, according to the Athens News Agency, referring to the need to hold elections.
THE Libya is experiencing a brief period of peace after the 2011 uprising, with the support of NATO, which overthrew Muammar Gaddafi. The country was divided in 2014 between rival factions – one in the western and the other in the eastern part of the country – with the last major conflict ending 2020 with a ceasefire.
But the political process to resolve the conflict has stalled after planned elections in December 2021 collapsed due to disagreements on the rules, including the eligibility of main candidates.
The eastern-based parliament, the House of Representatives, meanwhile said the interim unity government, installed through a UN-backed process in early 2021, is no longer valid and created a rival administration last year.
However, the government refused to step down until elections were held and efforts by armed groups aligned with the rival administration to remove her from Tripoli by force failed.
Talks since last year have focused on trying to get Libya’s two internationally recognized legislatures to agree on constitutional rules that would allow elections to be held.
The House of Representatives, which was elected in 2014 for a four-year term, unilaterally issued a constitutional amendment but without support from the Supreme Council of State, which emerged from a previous parliament elected in 2012.
Batili said the House of Representatives constitutional amendment was controversial in Libya, did not address contentious issues such as the right to run for candidates, and did not include a timetable for elections.
The latest major international effort to break the deadlock, through a 2020 political forum, it led to the formation of the current interim government and the roadmap for the December 2021 elections, but was thwarted by internal political strife.
Source: News Beast
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