On Monday, the Libyan Parliament announced the holding of an official session on Tuesday to discuss the latest developments in the electoral process.
On Saturday, 72 MP’s called for holding an urgent session “to save the ongoing electoral process from suspicions of fraud, foreign interference, bypassing of the law, and attempts to influence judicial decisions.”
In a joint statement, the MP’s said that they are “following the negative developments of the electoral process, the failure to implement the law and circumventing it by the judicial institution and the High National Election Commission (HNEC). As well as silence on suspicions of fraud and influence on the judiciary.”
They also stressed the need for the Head of the HNEC, Emad Al-Din Al-Sayeh, and representatives of the security and judicial institutions supervising the electoral process to attend the session and be held accountable.
They warned HNEC against announcing the final list of Presidential candidates before the accountability session ends; “so that the Parliament can assess the situation and study ways to salvage the electoral process and ensure that it will be conducted on time and in an appropriate security and political environment in accordance with the issued legislation.”
Moreover, they stressed that they would not “bow to suspicious external pressures,” or to be “false witnesses to a party of fraud, vote-buying, and insulting the judicial institution,” as they put it.
Meanwhile, they affirmed their support for holding “free, fair, and credible legal elections” and developing a new roadmap in accordance with the Constitutional Declaration and its eleven amendments.
This comes as the road to the polls is still fraught with dangers in Libya, less than three weeks before they are due to be held, on 24 December.
Political and security tensions are also increasing, while legal disputes are escalating between the competing sides over the eligibility of candidates. This has made many sceptical about the possibility of holding it as planned.