Libya’s Presidential Council announced on Tuesday the formation of a national coalition government which aims at uniting the factions of the war-torn country under a UN-backed plan, Reuters reports.
Advertisement
Several members of Libya’s rival parliaments are reportedly not backing the unity agreement and some say that the plan does not represent the wide range of the country’s competing factions.
The UN special envoy to Libya, Martin Kobler, has said the national unity government will have to address the need for democracy, as well as the humanitarian and security dilemmas facing the country. It gave the Tunis-based Presidential Council one month to name a Government of National Accord.
Libya has been racked by political divisions and violence asnumerous factions and militias ave competed for power followingthe fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The Presidential Council tasked with that mandate named a total of 32 ministers.
Since the summer of 2014 Libya has had two rival governments and parliaments, which operate from the capital Tripoli and from the east. Both are backed by loose alliances of armed brigades of rebels who once fought Gaddafi. He claimed there had been “a lack of seriousness and clarity in dealing with our basic demands” during the Presidential Council’s negotiations.
The National Accord Government should have been be made at the latest 30 days after the signing of the LPA, a deadline that is now expired following the postponement, and it should be approved by the Tobruk-based parliament within 10 days after the announcement.
The designated defence minister Al-Mahdi Ibrahim al-Barghathi is aligned with General Khalifa Haftar.
Commenting on the 48-hour delay, the United Nations Support Mission (UNSMIL) stated that: “Libya is a critical juncture”.
Advertisement
Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has also previously called for the lifting of the weapons ban imposed on Libya.
