Libya’s PM Dbeibah proposes holding polls at end of 2022
LIBYAN Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah suggested starting preparations for the elections in June and holding parliamentary polls at the end of 2022.
“After the parliamentary elections are held and the new government is formed, I will not stay in office even for a minute,” said Dbeibah in a speech on social media.
Dbeibah noted that he spoke to officials of the Supreme Election Commission about the elections and that if the commission does not stand by the people, they should look for alternative solutions.
Saying he expected reactions from different circles against him and his government after the announcement of the election calendar, Dbeibah said “the United Nations and Stephanie Williams should hear the voice of the people,” referring to the U.N. secretary-general’s special adviser on Libya.
“No solution will be found without the wishes of the Libyans,” he added.
Dbeibah in March had told Daily Sabah that he planned elections to be held during the summer.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently called on all sides to set a new date for elections in Libya.
“A clear, consensual path to elections is, now more than ever, a political necessity,” Guterres told the U.N. Security Council in a report obtained by Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).
Libya has been pulled apart again, with two rival governments claiming power after tentative steps toward unity in the past year, following a decade of civil war.
In February, the country’s easternbased House of Representatives named a new prime minister, former Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha, to lead a new interim government.
The lawmakers there claimed the mandate of interim Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah, who is based in Tripoli, expired when the election failed to take place as planned in December.
Dbeibah, however, remained defiant against replacing his government, despite the resignations of a handful of ministers and the handover of government buildings in the southern and eastern regions to Bashagha’s government.
Over the past few months, divisions among Libyan factions deepened, with militias mobilizing – especially in the western region. That has raised fears fighting could return after more than a year and a half of relative calm.
The presidential vote was originally planned for Dec. 24 but was postponed over disputes between rival factions on laws governing the elections and controversial presidential hopefuls. That was a major blow to international efforts to end a decade of chaos.