The UN on Tuesday June 28 launched an appeal to Libyan officials for "
a decisive and courageous effort
" to break the impasse over the elections during talks which are starting in Geneva between rival institutions.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Aguila Saleh and Speaker of the High Council of State Khaled el-Mechri are meeting Tuesday and Wednesday at the UN Palace of Nations to discuss the draft constitutional framework for the elections.
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"
You have now reached a critical stage in what has been a long and difficult road
," said the UN Secretary General's special adviser on Libya, Stephanie Williams, opening the talks.
“
Now is the time to make a decisive and courageous effort to enable the establishment of this historic compromise, in the interest of Libya, the Libyan people and the credibility of its institutions
”.
According to her, the two leaders will have to find a consensus on the timetable, the modalities and the main steps to guarantee the holding of national elections as soon as possible.
Presidential and legislative polls were originally scheduled to be held in December 2021 in Libya, to cap a UN-sponsored peace process after the 2020 violence. But they have been postponed indefinitely, due to sharp differences between political rivals and tensions on the ground, with increasingly recurrent armed clashes between rival militias in Tripoli.
“Elections in Libya as soon as possible”
Two governments have been vying for power since March.
That of Tripoli, which was put into orbit in early 2021 under the aegis of the UN to lead the transition until elections, and a government formed in March and supported by Parliament, which temporarily took up residence in Sirte for lack of to be able to take office in the capital.
The mandate of the Tripoli-based government, led by businessman Abdelhamid Dbeibah, theoretically expired on June 22, under the terms of the agreement reached under the aegis of the UN.
Rival Prime Minister Fathi Bachagha then said in a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres that it was now up to him to "
take charge of all necessary efforts to organize elections in Libya as soon as possible
".
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A week of talks from June 12 to 19 in Cairo, under the auspices of the UN, between representatives of Parliament and the High Council of State, which acts as the Senate in Libya and is based in Tripoli, to find a base constitutional election ended on June 20 without results.
Libya has been in chaos since the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011.