Libya: Consultations between Parliament and the High Council to start today in Rabat
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Roshan Amiri
- . September 30, 2021
- . Update: September 30, 2021 8:57 pm
Libya– Negotiations between representatives of the Libyan High Council of State (HCS) and the Parliament, the Tobruk House of Representatives (HoR), began today, Thursday 30 September, in the capital of Morocco, Rabat. The meeting between the Libyan Chamber and Senate representatives will focus on discussing the presidential electoral law.
In particular, the key issues are the territorial distribution of seats between Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan and the presence or absence of party lists. However, according to diplomatic sources in Tripoli, there are low expectations of reaching an agreement during the negotiations in Rabat. On Tuesday, the Libyan High Electoral Commission (HNEC) made a series of technical comments on the law for the president’s election.
In particular, the Commission called for the correction and modification of some law articles. Including 12, 16, 20, 22, 50 articles relating to the application’s dates, the application withdrawal and the conditions, the procedures for rejecting the application, and the appeal system. The Libyan House of Representatives president, Aguila Saleh, recently went to Morocco to prepare for this meeting. Subsequently, the High Council of State president, Khaled al Mishri, also went to the North African country.
Indeed, Morocco has been hosting meetings between the various Libyan parties for months to reach a formula satisfactory for all and organize the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for the end of next December. Recently, an anonymous letter, sent to the Security Council and the UNSMIL Support Mission in Libya, warned of a conspiracy between the council president, Mohamed Al-Menfi, and the head of HCS, Khaled al-Meshri, following the visit of the Libyan leader to the state of Qatar. According to the letter, the two have agreed not to allow some national figures such as General Khalifa Haftar to run for the President position. The plan could also involve Aguila Saleh today in Rabat.
So, we cannot exclude that the parties will reach a compromise on the electoral law that could favor the elderly Speaker of the HoR. Last week, General Khalifa Haftar temporarily resigned as commander of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF), three months earlier, as required by the current controversial electoral law signed by Aguila Saleh. Elections will be held in Libya, from the first time since 2012, on December 24, 2021.
