Mussa Al-Koni, a member of Libya’s Presidential Council, implicitly confirmed recent press reports that the council is planning to introduce a scheme for elections delay, as he took to Twitter to publicly distance himself from the proposal.
Multiple Libyan media outlets reported yesterday that the council’s chairman Mohamed al-Menfi and his deputy Abdulla al-Lafi are behind the scheme to postpone the elections, originally set for December 24 this year, until March 2022.
The reports of the proposal promoted the United Nations Mission in Libya to commend “the readiness” of the Presidential Council to “bring together relevant Libyan actors to resolve contested aspects related to the electoral process”.
However, Al-Koni said that the proposal represents the “personal opinion” of those who made it and “will not represent the Presidential Council”.
وإذ نرحب ببيان بعثة الأمم المتحدة المؤكد على موعدالانتخابات المحدد وفق الاتفاق السياسي، وإحالة التعديلات المُقترحة على القاعدة الدستورية للبرلمان، نشدد على التزامنا بذلك، وإن إي إجتهاد مغاير لن يمثل المجلس الرئاسي دون إتفاق الاعضاء الثلاثة، ووفق محضر ُمُوقع. غير ذلك هو رأي شخصي.
— موسى الكوني Al Kouni (@Moussa_kouni) October 31, 2021
“Although we welcome the statement of the United Nations Mission, which emphasized the date of the elections set by the political agreement […] we stress our commitment to this [date], and any effort to the contrary will not represent the Presidential Council without the agreement of its three members, and without a signed document. Otherwise it is a personal opinion,” Al-Koni said via Twitter.
The Libyan parliament passed a no-confidence motion against the government a couple of months ago, thus effectively turning it into a caretaker until a president is elected on December 24. Due to this, many fear that an election delay will consequently lead to an executive authority vacuum that could trigger a third civil war.
Both al-Menfi and al-Lafi are yet to address their proposal publicly.