Libya’s political and military installations rejected any constitutional basis that would pave the way for Putist general Khalifa Haftar to become president.
Following the recent meeting of the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) held in Switzerland on 28 June – 3 July, Libyan Prime Minister Khalid al-Mishri blamed some members of the forum for failing to reach an agreement with the Libyans. conditions that prevent military leaders from competing for the country’s presidency.
“Take off your military uniform, release your foreign citizenship and decide your war crimes case, but you will lose at the ballot box just as you lost at the ammunition boxes,” al-Mishri said in a Facebook statement to Haftar.
Meanwhile, Libya’s Justice and Construction Party (JCP) said they were completely opposed to the dictatorship’s return to the country.
“The Justice and Construction Party looks forward to working with all political and national forces to achieve a stable and civilian state that alleviates people’s suffering and rejects the return to despotism and the establishment of a one-man rule,” JCP said in a Facebook statement.
The Western Tripoli Protection Force, for its part, rejected any proposal that would pave the way for the candidacy of someone who “constituted the blood of Libya and attempted a coup against the country’s legitimate government.”
As part of a UN-led dialogue, 5 + 5 Joint Military Committee meetings were held on 23 October 2020 in Geneva, Switzerland. As a result of the meetings, a permanent ceasefire agreement was signed between the legitimate Libyan government and a delegation affiliated with Haftar.
Within the framework of the political process that started after the arms permit agreement, LPDF decided in November last year that the elections would be held in December this year.
Libya has been in turmoil since 2011 when a NATO-backed insurgency overthrew long-time ruler Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. The country has since been divided between Haftar’s forces in the east and the UN-backed National Agreement (GNA) government in the west.
Haftar’s offensive, supported by Egypt, France, the United Arab Emirates (United Arab Emirates) and Russia, collapsed in June 2020 when militias supporting the Tripoli government, with support from Turkey, gained the upper hand.
According to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), his offensive amounted to war crimes, as it involved the use of mines and a pattern of violence that harmed civilians.
Despite presenting a picture of a secular and Western-oriented leader, Haftar has largely shut down Western journalists from its territory. During a rare visit, The New York Times described the Haftar administration’s rule over areas controlled by his forces as “unpleasant authoritarianism that is in many ways both more Puritan and more lawless than Libya was under its last dictator, Moammar Gadhafi.”
While local people in Benghazi complain about the corruption of tribal militia leaders and former Gaddafi officers, unexplained bombings, abductions and detentions were reported without trial. They also reported that extremists have taken control of mosques and religious broadcasts and could infiltrate the police. At the end of a four-year attack, Haftar forces took control of Benghazi in 2017. Almost three years have passed, but still the streets of Benghazi still resemble a ghost town with ruins and wrecks.
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