Member of the Libyan Parliament, Fatima Al-Swei noted that a special session is scheduled to be held on Monday regarding the results of Parliament Speaker, Ageela Saleh’s visit to Turkey.
In a press statement, Al-Swei said that the session will discuss appropriate solutions to approve the constitutional rule. She noted that the accusations by Prime Minister Abdel-Hamid Dbaiba regarding the Parliament’s obstruction of the elections “was unacceptable.”
The MP added that the Parliament had contacted the High National Elections Commission (HNEC), “and the response was that there are compelling circumstances that prevent the elections from being held without mentioning any details.”
On Saturday, the former Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General in Libya, Stephanie Williams said that elections could happen provided that Libya’s Parliament and High Council of State (HCS) agree on the necessary legal “framework”.
This elusive agreement between the two chambers has been hard to come by. They held marathon talks under Williams’ auspices in June, but failed to reach a consensus. Announcing the failure, she said that despite the progress made in Cairo, “it remains insufficient as a basis to move forward towards comprehensive national elections.”
In press statements, the UN diplomat added that Libya suffers from external interference. However, at the same time, she observed that most Libyan leaders “love to court external actors, to travel the world, and receive the red carpet treatment. Yet such leaders, hypocritically, publically blame external actors for what are in the end mostly Libyan failures to reach the needed consensus,” she noted.