CAIRO (AP) – East Libyan troops on Saturday welcomed the appointment of an interim government to carry the war-torn North African country to national elections scheduled for later this year, which is an important step towards the reunification of the country can be.
In a statement, the self-styled Libyan Arab army, led by Khalifa Hifter, congratulated ‘the national figures’ on a UN-mediated process.
“The Libyan people hope to work tirelessly to provide services and prepare the country for general elections on December 24, 2021,” the statement said, referring to the interim government, which includes a prime minister and a three-seat presidential council. include.
The statement was the first by Hifter’s followers since the defeat of his ally, Aguila Saleh, the speaker of Libya’s eastern parliament, who headed the Presidential Council.
Hifter’s forces control much of eastern and southern Libya.
After months of talks, the UN process – known as the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum which includes 75 delegates from across the country – has appointed Mohammad Younes Menfi, a Libyan diplomat from the east of the country, as chairman of the Presidential Council, and Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah, a powerful businessman from the western city of Misrata, as prime minister.
Libya has fallen into chaos following the 2011 uprising that ousted long-serving dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The country has been divided between two governments since 2015, one in the east and one in the west, each backed by a variety of militias and foreign governments.
Dbeibah, the appointed prime minister, must form a cabinet and present his program within three weeks.
In his first speech since the breakthrough by the UN through talks, Dbeibah said that failure for the transitional government “is not an option.”
He said the appointment of the interim government “represents the victory of national unity, reunification, peacebuilding and the achievement of the desired democracy”.
Dbeibah also called on regional and international countries to work with Libya’s interim administration.
“We call on all countries, without exception, to be our partners in achieving stability in the region,” he said.
However, analysts have warned of major challenges on the way to ending years of chaos in the oil-rich region.
Wolfram Lacher, a Libyan expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, argued that the selected interim government would not bring Libya ‘any step closer to the reunification’ of its institutions.
“No political project unites them, only opportunism,” he said. ‘They did not win because people voted for them, but because they voted against’ heavyweight politicians like Saleh, the speaker and Interior Minister Fathi Bashaga, in Tripoli who participated on one list.