The Presidential Council, a body with some executive powers, announced on Tuesday that it had drawn up a plan to break the country’s political deadlock by holding elections.
“In response to the legitimate calls of Libyans and in order to meet their demands for change, (…) the Presidential Council (PC) has prepared an action plan to get the country out of the political crisis,” it said in a statement.
Without revealing the contours of this action plan, the Presidential Council assured that it aimed to “preserve the unity of the country, avert the specter of war and division, limit foreign interference and push towards a national settlement”.
Abdallah Allafi, the number two of the PC, which comprises three members representing Libya’s three historic provinces, is to discuss with the rival camps a roadmap leading to presidential and parliamentary elections “according to a precise timetable”. Libya has been plunged into chaos since the fall of the Gaddafi regime in 2011.
Presidential and legislative polls were originally scheduled for December 2021 to crown a UN-sponsored peace process after violence in 2020. But they have been postponed indefinitely due to sharp differences between political rivals and tensions on the ground.
The initiative by the PC, itself a product of a UN peace process, comes in response to repeated calls from Libyan political actors for it to intervene to find a solution to the crisis and ensure the elections are held “as soon as possible”, the statement said.