By Janet Ekstract
NEW YORK – On Sunday, the United Nations Envoy to Libya, Abdoulaye Bathily phoned Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, the current head of Tripoli’s unity government to discuss holding elections that were supposed to have taken place last December 24. As Dbeibah stated on Twitter: “I welcome the statement of the Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSML) Abdoulaye Bathily, in which he urged all the relevant parties to achieve what are described as the “sole purpose” to go for elections.”
On Saturday, the UN envoy urged all political players to speed up discussions on how to move forward with the political process. He also urged all parties involved to facilitate conditions to hold “fair and free elections.”
Libyan Parliament Speaker Agila Saleh confirmed there is a consensus between his East-Libya based assembly and the Tripoli-based High Council of state who acts as a senate on the information about Libya’s foreign institutions. The reason elections did not move forward as planned was initially due to a lack of consensus by all parties and a move by the East-Libya based government to install Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha in office, which prompted Dbeibah to say he would only step down if a government was established through an “elected parliament.”
The North African oil-rich nation has seen its share of conflict since the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 that brought a multitude of mercenaries into Libya – ostensibly – Russia’s Wagner Group with accusations flying on all sides before the UN and other countries including Turkiye, stepped in to broker a ceasefire. The Berlin Conference was the venue that was instrumental in bringing warring factions to the negotiating table. Later, the UN assisted in brokering talks on how to elect parliamentarians that could represent the many different factions within the country.
