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The UN’s new special envoy for LibyaAbdoulaye Bathily warned that further postponement of the polls in Libya could accentuate instability, leading to the risk of partition. told the U.N. Security Council that the October 2020 ceasefire still held despite escalating rhetoric and the build-up of rival governments’ forces in the east and west of the country.
The UN’s new special envoy for LibyaAbdoulaye Bathily warned that further postponement of the polls in Libya could accentuate instability, leading to the risk of partition. told the U.N. Security Council that the October 2020 ceasefire still held despite escalating rhetoric and the build-up of rival governments’ forces in the east and west of the country. Oil-rich Libya plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
The country is now divided between rival administrations supported by rebel militias and foreign governments. The efforts to hold elections on December 24, 2021, failed. Subsequently, Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah appointed by the stakeholders as the head of the transitional government till the conduct of elections refused to resign.
The country’s eastern-based parliament appointed a rival prime minister, Fathi Bachagha, who has been trying for months to install his government in Tripoli. Bathily is a former Senegalese minister and diplomat. He arrived in Libya in mid-October and has travelled to all parts of the country.
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He warned that further prolonging the elections would make the country even more vulnerable to political, economic, and security instability” and could risk partition, urging Security Council members to join efforts to encourage Libyan leaders to work with determination to hold elections as soon as possible.
In the meantime, Russia requested a preparatory meeting, and its deputy ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, described the situation in the country as “very tense” and “rather unstable”, and said that the situation would get out of control soon with no sign of an end to the rival governments. Accusing the western nations, especially the United States, of prolonging the Libyan crisis by using the turbulent situation in the country to have unfettered access to Libyan oil.
