Election in Libya canceled: no new president on Christmas Eve

As of: December 22nd, 2021 9:38 pm

The presidential election in Libya has been postponed. The electoral commission announced that it would be impossible to vote on December 24th as planned.

By Miriam Staber, ARD-Studio Cairo

The presidential election in the civil war country Libya will not take place on Friday as planned. In the past few weeks there have been increasing signs that the election will be postponed. A parliamentary committee said on Wednesday that December 24th would be impossible to keep as the election date.

Many people are disappointed: “We had hoped that the elections would bring normalcy to the country and unite the government,” said one man. “Our hope was that the elections would end the chaos. We have had enough of war, insecurity and seizures of power,” says another passerby.

It had indicated itself

The country has disintegrated since the fall of ruler Muammar al Gaddafi in 2011. At times there were two rival governments: one supported by the UN in the capital Tripoli in the west, the other in Benghazi in the east of the country, which is controlled by the militia leader Khalifa Haftar.

A ceasefire was then agreed in 2020 and a transitional government was later formed. Another step should be the elections on December 24th, the 70th anniversary of Libyan independence from Italy. Almost 100 candidates had submitted their applications, but waited in vain for confirmation.

“We are asking the electoral commission to publish a final list of candidates. We are also calling for the reasons for not having an election on the scheduled date to be published,” said Abdelhakim Abdellah Swihel, spokesman for a group of 17 candidates , opposite the news agency AFP.

Setback for the UN too

According to the Libyan media, the election commission ordered all electoral committees across the country to cease their work on Tuesday, which experts say has practically shut down election preparations. This was followed by a message from Parliament that the election cannot take place as planned. Observers see this as a setback not only for Libya, but also for the United Nations, which, like many European countries, had urged to meet the election deadline.

“Even if the UN mission for Libya has not yet issued an official statement on postponing the election, it is clear that it is talking to all actors: with the electoral commission, with the candidates, with the parliament in the east, with the High Council of State, with the Interim government. So you are working on a plan for the elections, “said analyst Amanda Kadlec, who was part of the UN panel of experts on Libya.

“We just don’t want a war”

Among the promising presidential candidates are the militia leader Haftar, the president of the current transitional government Abdul Hamid Dbeiba and the son of the former ruler Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, who is wanted by the international criminal court. At present, observers fear renewed fighting in Libya. Nevertheless, many Libyans hope for an early vote and peace. “We just don’t want a war,” says this man.

It doesn’t matter whether there are elections or not, whether the situation is improving or not. The most important thing is that there is no war.

Libyan parliament considers presidential elections on Friday to be impossible

Miriam Staber, ARD Cairo, December 22nd, 2021 9:06 p.m.

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