Security Council will hold a session on Libya Monday to consider the issue of appointing a new head of UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), with the possibility of appointing the Senegalese candidate, Abdallah Batali.
UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, presented to the members of the Council the new candidate, Abdullah Bitali, to take the vacant position for months, according to diplomatic sources in the organization, last Friday.
While unofficial confirmations indicate the possibility of appointing the Senegalese candidate, there are expectations that Batali will have the support of Russia and China, which had previously opposed more than once the appointment of the American Stephanie Williams as head of the Mission.
It appears that the candidacy of the former Senegalese minister came in response to the African demands, which called on Guterres more than one occasion to appoint a candidate from the continent who enjoys the support of the African Union, and which blames the international organization for marginalizing the African role in the political process to resolve the Libyan crisis.
UNSMIL, since December 2021, has been experiencing a leadership vacuum after the resignation of its former head, the Slovakian Jan Kubis, who was exercising his duties from Geneva.
In the event that Abdullah Batali is appointed as the head of UNSMIL, he will be the eighth envoy after the American Stephanie Williams, the Slovakian Jan Kubis, the Lebanese Ghassan Salameh, the German Martin Kobler, the Spanish Bernardino Leon, the Lebanese Tariq Mitri, the British Ian Martin and the Jordanian Abd al-Ilah al-Khatib.