The United Nations’ top official in Libya offered Friday to mediate between political rivals in a renewed push for long-delayed elections, warning against “escalation” after a new government took office.
Stephanie Williams’s call came a day after the country’s parliament swore in a new prime minister, Fathi Bashagha in a challenge to interim premier Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh.
Williams, UN chief Antonio Guterres’s special adviser on Libya, warned in a series of tweets that “the solution to Libya’s crisis does not lie in forming rival administrations and perennial transitions.”
She said she had asked the House of Representatives and the High Council of State (HCS) to nominate six delegates each to form a “joint committee dedicated to developing a consensual constitutional basis”.
“The joint committee should convene on 15 March 2022 — under the auspices of the UN and with my good offices as the Special Adviser to the Secretary General — to work for a two-week period to achieve this goal,” she added.
“I await the chambers’ speedy responses to this invitation and reiterate the responsibility of the Libyan institutions to act in good faith & engage constructively together to move towards elections, for the sake of the 2.8 million Libyans who registered to vote for presidential and parliamentary elections.”
1/5 Last night I sent letters to the leadership of both the House of Representatives and the High Council of State inviting them to nominate six delegates from each chamber to form a joint committee dedicated to developing a consensual constitutional basis.
— Stephanie Turco Williams (@SASGonLibya) March 4, 2022