The Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), Abdoulaye Bathily expressed his “full support for the initiative put forward by the Presidential Council (PC) to resolve the political crisis in the country.” This came during a telephone call on Sunday, with PC Head, Mohamed Al-Mnifi.
Bathily urged all political parties to “expedite dealing with the initiative, in order to reach a comprehensive national consensus to resolve the crisis.”
“The time has come for everyone to abide by the roadmap and engage in dialogue in pursuit of a constitutional basis, to move towards holding Parliamentary and Presidential elections,” Bathily said.
The PC has recently launched a new initiative, which aims to resolve the decade-long crisis. This comes after all previous attempts have failed to reach a suitable agreement between the warring parties.
According to the initiative, the PC called for holding a “constitutional dialogue” as a priority, aimed at ending the transitional stages and resolving the conflict.
Libya’s transitional stages have failed to realistically create a suitable solution for all parties. Previous attempts have resulted in a resurgence of violence, after short bouts of peace.
The current initiative was launched under the slogan “The Presidential Council’s approach to overcoming the political deadlock, and achieving national consensus.” Like all other initiatives, this carries a slogan that heralds an imminent solution to the crisis. However, implementing the initiative remains difficult.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister of Libya’s Government of National Unity (GNU), Abdel-Hamid Dbaiba said that he “will not step down from power until after a constitution is drawn up for the country, even if it takes 30 years.”
On 10 February 2022, the Libyan Parliament announced the unanimous appointment of Fathi Bashagha as the new Prime Minister. But Dbaiba warned that the appointment of a new interim government could lead to war and chaos in the country. He renewed his pledge to only hand power over to an elected government.
