Libya parliament adopts law on legislative polls

Libya's parliament passed a law on legislative elections, its spokesman said, ahead of a planned national vote set for December 24 under a United Nations-led peace process.

The law comes less than a month after speaker Aguila Saleh signed off a law for presidential elections to be held the same day -- a move opponents said bypassed due process and favoured a run by his ally, east Libyan military chief Khalifa Haftar.

The eastern-based parliament's spokesman Abdullah Bliheg wrote on Twitter that it had "passed a law on elections to the House of Representatives during sitting". "The house has completed the legislative work necessary to organise the presidential and legislative elections on Dec24," he told.

The text of the law was not immediately available. The parliament said on its website that "by passing the laws necessary for the upcoming elections, the House of Representatives has ended one of the most dangerous phases in Libya's modern history."

It said December 24 would be an "electoral wedding feast that draws our nation into a phase of stability, construction, and reconciliation".Libya has endured a decade of bloodletting since the 2011 fall of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a NATO-backed uprising, which unleashed a complex civil war that dragged in multiple foreign powers.

A landmark ceasefire between eastern and western camps last year, following a year-long bid by Haftar to seize Tripoli, paved the way to a UN-backed peace process. Dbeibah's unity government took office in March with a mandate to lead the country to the December elections, but wrangling over the legal and consitutional basis for the polls has cast increasing doubts over the process. The parliament, elected in 2014, last month passed a law stipulating that military officials may stand in presidential polls, on condition they withdraw from their roles 3 months beforehand.