The head of the UN mission to Libya, Abdullah Batili, called on the Libyan parties to search for an alternative mechanism to resolve the current political crisis in the country, in the event that the House of Representatives and the state could not agree on a constitutional basis leading to elections.
In the Security Council's monthly session on Libya, Batelli urged the Libyan parties to abandon their own interests and agree on a constitutional basis for holding elections, calling on the Council to support the efforts of his mission to hold negotiations between the Libyan parties.
In the session, the UN envoy gave a detailed presentation of the political stalemate regarding control of an interim government and the constitutional method for holding elections, and attributed the dispute to the heads of the two legislative bodies in Libya;
Parliament and the High Council of State.
Batelli said that the ongoing dispute between two people, Parliament Speaker Aguila Saleh and Head of the High Council of State Khaled Al-Mishri, regarding a very limited number of provisions in the constitutional rule, is no longer a sufficient justification for keeping the entire country hostage to division.
Regarding his meeting with Saleh and Al-Mishri, which was scheduled to take place in Zintan, in the west of the country, Batili said that he had postponed it for "logistical reasons and political issues," and that he was seeking to set another date.
The UN envoy had announced his support for the Libyan Presidential Council's proposal for a tripartite meeting that includes the three councils: the Presidential Council, the House of Representatives, and the Supreme State, to discuss ways to move forward in Libya.
crises and divisions
As political divisions deepened in Libya this year, the country has regressed on some of the political progress it made after a ceasefire between the main warring parties in 2020.
After a cease-fire in 2020, the warring parties agreed to hold elections on December 24, 2021, and formed a new national unity government that was supposed to reunite the divided national institutions.
But the electoral process collapsed amid disagreements over the rules.
The House of Representatives, which was allied with the eastern forces during the civil war, said the unity government's mandate had expired.
The council announced a new administration headed by Fathi Bashagha, but the unity government headed by Abdul Hamid al-Dabaiba refused to relinquish power, and is still recognized by the United Nations and Western countries.