On Tuesday, the head of Libya’s National Elections Commission, Emad Al-Sayeh, met with the First Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Fawzi Al-Nuwairi, to discuss preparations for the upcoming general parliamentary and presidential elections as well as municipal elections.
The meeting, held at the commission’s headquarters in Tripoli, addressed the challenges facing the body both operationally and technically with regards to procedures taken so far to prepare for the polls.
The electoral process has stalled at the stage of referring the election laws to the joint committee made up of members of the House of Representatives and the High Council of State. On August 8, the House of Representatives referred the laws governing the presidential and parliamentary elections to this joint 6+6 committee tasked with drafting them, after rejecting some provisions.
Among the clauses rejected for the presidential election law was requiring candidates to contest two rounds. The spokesperson for the House of Representatives, Abdullah Belhaq, said it would be illogical for a candidate who won 90% in the first round to then have to compete in a runoff. The House thus called for amending this to allow for the possibility of deciding the presidential election in the first round.
In early June, the 6+6 committee announced an agreement on the two election laws and referred them to the House of Representatives and High Council of State for further action.