A forum organized by the UN elects a new transitional government for Libya

Libyan Prime Minister-elect Abdul Hamid delivers a speech by videoconference last Wednesday in Geneva during a session of the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum. HANDOUT / AFP

The UN has managed, after five months of negotiations, that a forum made up of 73 Libyans and made up of representatives of the three regions of the country, met last Monday in Geneva and elected, five days later, a prime minister and a presidential council, made up of a president and two vice presidents, as a first step towards rebuilding the country.

The new head of the Government is businessman Abdul Hamid and the president-elect, Mohamed Menfi, former ambassador to Greece.

They will be in charge of organizing a general election in the country to be held on December 24.

For now, Abdul Hamid will have 21 days to appoint his Executive, while the West of the country will continue to be governed by the so-called Government of National Agreement, whose prime minister, Fayez al Serraj, was proposed in 2015 by the then UN special envoy. , the Spanish Bernardino León, to lead the Government of national unity.

Abdul Hamid will then have another 21 days to get a vote of confidence from Parliament.

Nothing will be easy in this next month and a half in Libya.

There will be positions, such as those responsible for the Ministry of Defense, whose appointments will be very difficult to reach a consensus in a country that has been immersed in a latent civil war for almost seven years.

The list headed by Hamid and Menfi obtained 39 votes against the one that seemed the favorite, that of the head of Parliament based in the east of the country, Aguila Salé, and the current interior minister, Fati Basaga, from Misrata and established in Tripoli

Salé aspired to be the new president and Basaga, his prime minister.

The two of them are, without a doubt, the most relevant of those who came to Geneva and the best known as well, inside and outside Libya.

But they only garnered 34 votes.

Stephanie Williams, the acting head of the UN mission in Libya, said she was delighted to "witness" a historic moment.

And he added that the emissaries have pledged to appoint at least 30% women to positions of responsibility.

The horizon, however, is full of obstacles.

In the East, the strong man is still 77-year-old Marshal Khalifa Hafter.

Although his charisma was weakened after he failed in his attempt to conquer the country's capital last year, he still controls weapons in that area of ​​Libya.

And in the West, in Tripoli, it remains to be seen what will be the reaction of some militias related to the Minister of the Interior, Fati Basaga.

It will also be necessary to see how other militias in favor of the one who until now served as head of the National Accord Government, Fayez al Serraj, who in turn is facing Basaga, will react.

The fact that both Serraj and Basaga made public their congratulations to the elected leaders offers a positive signal.

Another thing will be what happens on the ground from now on.

It also remains to be seen what the foreign powers whose intervention through mercenaries has been key in shaping the current power struggle in Libya will do.

Turkey supports the Western Government of National Accord, while Russia supports the Eastern Parliament, which also has the backing of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

Neither Turkey nor Russia have taken their mercenaries out of the country, despite the fact that the two opposing parties signed a ceasefire in October in which they promised to clear the country of foreign forces within a maximum period of three months, a period already has been fulfilled.

The analyst Wolfram Lacher, from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) was very skeptical on Twitter: "If this government manages to be operational it will have a very limited scope."

The best that can be said for the moment of the situation in Libya is that the ceasefire has not been broken since October.

But everything hangs by a thread.

Five days to vote for a prime minister

The UN mission in Libya had created in October a body called the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (FDPL) in order to elect a transitional government supported by the three regions of the country with their corresponding tribes: Tripolitana, in the West;

Cirenáica, in the East, and Fezán, in the South.

The UN convened 73 members of the Forum on Monday at a secret location outside Geneva.

The sessions were broadcast live over the internet.

On Tuesday a first vote was held to choose the prime minister from among four candidates, but none obtained the 70% of the votes required to be appointed.

This Friday a second vote was held, but this time in the format of lists of four members.

As neither obtained 60%, a second round was held between the two most voted lists.

And after five days of meetings, the candidacy that at first seemed weaker was proclaimed the winner.

The Forum will, in turn, be the body in charge of supervising the transition to the December 24 elections.