Monday 25 January 2021
Last update on Monday, January 25, 2021 At 5:40 PM
Delegates to the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum approved the mechanism for selecting a new transitional executive branch to prepare the country for the Libyan national elections on December 24, 2021.
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) reported that among the 72 members of the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum who voted (out of 74 in total), 51 voted in favor of the selection mechanism (73%), 19 voted against and 2 abstained, thus far exceeding the necessary 63% threshold set by the Advisory Committee. Organized by UNSMIL, the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum is part of the process initiated by the Berlin Summit.
At the same time, the Joint Constitutional Committee of the House of Representatives (CoR) and the High Council of State (HCE) agreed to hold a constitutional referendum to define the constitutional and legal bases for the national elections on 24 December.
The agreement was reached unanimously after the Constitutional Committee meetings on January 19 and 20 in Hurghada, Egypt. The referendum will focus on the draft constitution submitted by the Constituent Assembly. This is an important step towards making it possible to hold national elections on a constitutional basis on December 24.
By organizing elections on a constitutional basis, the next Libyan government will no longer be qualified as an interim government, making it possible to strengthen its legitimacy.
On the other hand, the UN Security Council approved on January 15 the appointment of Jan Kubis as UN special envoy to Libya.
Slovak Jan Kubis was Special Coordinator for Lebanon since January 2019. He also led the United Nations mission in Iraq from 2015 to 2018 and that in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2015.
This appointment follows the rejection of Nickolay Mladenov, initially proposed to take over the post of UN special envoy to Libya, and whose appointment was approved by the UN Security Council on December 15, 2020.
Jan Kubis will therefore replace Ghassan Salamé at the head of UNSMIL, who resigned on March 2, 2020 for health reasons, the interim having since been provided by Stephanie Williams.
Source French Embassy in Tunisia
