Elections in Libya: Question of Peace or Protest in the country
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Raven Ruma
- . April 29, 2020
- . Update: October 5, 2021 7:01 pm
People in Lebanon have taken to the streets expressing their anger over the government’s handling of economic crisis. The protests all across the nation took a violent turn on Tuesday after the death of 26-year old mechanic Fawaz Fouad Al-Samman, who died during clashes with the country’s armed forces in the northern city of Tripoli on Monday. Tripoli, which is
Although, not everyone from the administration agrees with this announcement, many are still of the opinion that whatever the risks, elections are the only way to turn the page on endless disputes among the established powers and confer legitimacy on rulers whereas others feel that with elections, people will get endless power and have their greater say in policy making.
The law provides a legislative framework for the country’s planned nationwide parliamentary and presidential elections set for December 24, thus elections are advisable to be conducted in the country. The United Nations and major foreign powers are all pushing for the elections to go ahead, saying most Libyans want the vote, and inside Libya all major factions are publicly demanding it takes place, whatever their private stance.
Tarek Megerisi, who is a Libya specialist at the European council on foreign relations, mentioned that the main difficulty is that Libya has lacked any political institutions with undisputed or popular legitimacy since the General National Congress was voted into power in 2012. This creates a political arena where incumbent elites have felt empowered to shirk their constitutional responsibilities of finalising a new constitution and ending the transitional period.
It furthermore suggest that instead of focusing on scrapping for absolute power and looting Libya’s once considerable coffers, the government should look for uplifting and reviving the economy. Meanwhile, Libyan Foreign Minister Najla al-Mangoush announced a very modest start to the withdrawal of foreign fighters from the country. This advances the UN to withdraw near to 20,000 foreign combatants, which are deployed in the country, including Russians, Chadians, Sudanese and Syrians.
