Libya: Egypt urges prime minister to hold elections as scheduled

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi on Thursday urged Libyan Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah to hold legislative and presidential elections as scheduled in December, two days after receiving the Speaker of Parliament and East Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar.

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The day before, the adviser of the US State Department Derek Chollet, visiting Tripoli, had described the poll as "the

" in Libya which is trying to extricate itself from a decade of violence. and power struggles.

Egypt refuses "any form of interference"

"

" said his spokesman Bassam Radi.

Libyan Foreign Minister Najla al-Mangoush had not ruled out at the end of August the possibility of postponing the elections if Parliament delayed in ratifying the electoral law.

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Dbeibah is visiting Cairo within the framework of meetings of a joint commission between the two neighboring countries, Egypt regularly pleading with Tripoli to say "

", as Radi recalls. .

In December, the UN estimated at some 20,000 the number of mercenaries and foreign fighters in Libya: Russians from the private group Wagner, Chadians, Sudanese and Syrians.

Several hundred Turkish soldiers are also present under a bilateral agreement concluded with the previous government in Tripoli.

Parliament must ratify the text

The question of the elections scheduled for December 24 is central in Libya, where the president of the parliament Aguila Saleh recently ratified without having submitted it to the vote of the deputies a law relating to the next presidential election, a decision perceived by several critics as favoring the marshal. Haftar.

Parliament still has to debate and ratify the electoral law concerning legislative elections.

Egypt has long been considered one of Haftar's main supporters in the conflict in Libya, marked in recent years by tensions between two rival powers in the East and the West.