CAIRO (AP) – Eastern Libyan forces welcomed on Saturday the appointment of an interim government to lead the war-torn country in North Africa until the national elections scheduled for the end of this year, in what could be an important step towards the reunification of the country.
In a statement, the self-styled Libyan Arab Armed Forces, led by Khalifa Hifter, congratulated “the national figures” who were chosen in a process brokered by the UN.
“The Libyan people hope to work tirelessly to provide services and prepare the country for the general elections on December 24, 2021,” said the statement, referring to the interim government, which includes a prime minister and a three-seat Presidential Council. .
The statement was the first made by Hifter’s followers since the defeat of his ally, Águila Saleh, the president of Libya’s eastern parliament who ran for the presidential council.
Hifter’s forces control much of eastern and southern Libya.
After months of negotiations, the UN process – known as Libya’s Political Dialogue Forum, which includes 75 delegates from across the country – has appointed Mohammad Younes Menfi, a Libyan diplomat from the east of the country, as President of the Presidential Council, and Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah, a powerful businessman from the western city of Misrata, as prime minister.
Libya plunged into chaos after the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed dictator Moammar Gaddafi. The country has been divided since 2015 between two governments, one in the east and one in the west, each supported by a series of militias and foreign governments.
Dbeibah, the appointed prime minister, is expected to form a Cabinet and present his program within three weeks.
In his first speech since the United Nations advanced negotiations, Dbeibah said the failure of the transitional government “is not an option”.
He said the appointment of the interim government represented “the victory of national unity, reunification, peace-building and the achievement of the desired democracy”.
Dbeibah also called on regional and international countries to cooperate with Libya’s interim administration.
“We call on all countries, without exception, to be our partners in achieving stability in the region,” he said.
However, analysts warned of the enormous challenges on the way to end the chaos of years in the oil-rich county.
Wolfram Lacher, a Libya expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, argued that the selected interim government would not bring Libya “any step closer to the reunification” of its institutions.
“No political project unites them, only opportunism,” he said. “They won not because people voted for them, but because they voted against” leading politicians, like Saleh, the mayor, and Tripoli’s interior minister, Fathi Bashaga, who ran on a list.