Lawmakers OK interim government, set election

BENGHAZI, Libya — Libyan lawmakers confirmed a newly appointed interim government on Wednesday in the hopes it will help unify the divided, warwracked North African country, and shepherd it through to elections at the end of the year.

“This is a historic day,” parliament speaker Aguila Saleh declared at the end of the voting session that took place amid international pressure on Libya’s stakeholders to support a road map brokered in a U.N.led process late last year.

He said 132 lawmakers approved the government of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, which replaces two rival administrations — one based in the country’s east and another in the west — that have been ruling Libya for years.

Dbeibah, a powerful businessman from the western city of Misrata, was appointed last month to lead the executive branch of an interim government that also includes a threemember Presidential Council chaired by Mohammad Younes Menfi, a Libyan diplomat from the country’s east.

Their appointment capped months of U.N.brokered multitrack talks that set a political road map to hold parliamentary and presidential elections on Dec. 24, a date Dbeibah pledged to respect following his confirmation.

He also vowed to avoid having a repeat of war and infighting in Libya.

“The war should not be repeated. We should not kill each other again,” he told lawmakers.

Oilrich Libya was plunged into chaos after a 2011 NATObacked uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Khadafy. The country has been divided between two governments, one in the east and another in the west, each backed by a vast array of militias as well as foreign powers.

The U.N. mission in Libya welcomed the confirmation of Dbeibah’s government.

“Libya has now a genuine opportunity to move forward towards, unity, stability, prosperity, reconciliation and to restore fully its sovereignty,” it said.

The interim government faces towering challenges, mainly the dismantling of numerous heavily armed local militias and the presence of at least 20,000 mercenaries and foreign fighters implicated in the country’s chaos.