54 members of Libya’s High Council of State (HCS) have announced their rejection of the outcomes from the committee charged with drafting the election law. They did this just hours before the 6+6 committee was set to unveil the final agreement on electoral laws.
In a statement released on Sunday, the council members deemed the committee’s outputs as “invalid,” due to their “lack of constitutionality and overstepping their powers and tasks.” They urged all political factions, parties, and civil society institutions to reject any possible consensus among committee members on the election law, specifically concerning the candidature of dual nationality holders, military personnel, and those with criminal convictions for the presidency of Libya.
This rejection underscores the difficulty of reaching local consensus on a solution leading to elections, as the Libyan Parliament is also divided regarding the 6+6 committee’s work. 61 Deputies considered, in a statement on Saturday, that the committee “deviated from its task and exceeded it by increasing the number of seats in the House of Representatives (HoR).”
They demanded, “not to approve any amendments without referring back to the council and not to interfere in the parliamentary seats, whether increase or decrease and leave it to the next constitution.”
This comes ahead of the committee announcing its final agreement on the law and the election date, after more than two weeks of negotiations hosted by the Moroccan city of Bouznika. Committee members revealed that they reached a complete understanding on electoral laws, including disputed eligibility conditions for presidential candidacy. The signing of the agreement is set to take place on Monday in the presence of Parliament Speaker Ageela Saleh and the HCS Head, Khaled Al-Mishri.
In this context, Az El-Din Kouirab, a member of the 6+6 committee representing the Parliament, confirmed through his Facebook page, that the committee members “voted unanimously on the three laws,” referring to the electoral laws for the Head of State and the Councils of Representatives and Senators.
