Need budget for statute vote: Libyan poll official

TRIPOLI: Libya’s electoral commissionhasaskedthegovernment for $28.7 million, saying the funding is needed to boost its “zero” budget to organise a vote on a new constitution as early as February.

Western powers and the United Nations hope Libya will hold a national election by June after a referendum on a constitutional framework to chart a way out of a conlict stemming from the overthrow of Muammar Qadhai in 2011.

A French plan, backed by the United Nations, had initially called for a presidential and parliamentary vote on Dec.10.

But weeks of ighting in the capital Tripoli between competing groups and almost no progress between the North African country’s two rival parliaments made that impossible.

Now Emad Al Sayah, chairman of the High National Elections Commis- sion (HNEC), said on Thursday his group needed funding to plan for the constitutional vote.

“The budget of the commission is zero, it’s red,” he told reporters. “We have inancial commitments of half a million (dinars).”

He said the commission had asked the Tripoli-based government to get 40 million dinars ($28.7 million) to start the process for a constitutional vote.

It was not immediately possible to reach the internationally backed government.

Sayah said such a constitutional referendum could be held as early as February, if a budget had been allocated to import technical equipment and ballot materials.

“HNEC will announce the process at the end of January and the process will be inished at the end of February,” he said, describing a February date as an estimate.

A draft constitution has been drawn up to be put to a referendum, but it is not clear how that will work.

The United Nations also wants to stage a national conference for Libyans in early 2019 to overcome divisions and decide what type of elections they want, presidential or parliamentary.

Sayah said the date for the constitutional vote needed to be agreed with the internationally recognised parliament, the House of Representatives (HOR), which took last week the irst legislative steps towards it.

Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya analyst, said lawmakers might agree on inal election legislation, despite the resistance of some igures to the UN plan, but he remained sceptical.