The UN envoy for Libya, Jan Kubis, on Thursday warned of an impasse in the political, security and budgetary plans for the country, which is supposed to hold general elections on December 24 but which are looking increasingly in doubt.”I am deeply concerned about the wider ramification of the stalemate in the political electoral track,” Kubis said during the monthly meeting of the Security Council on Libya, held at a ministerial level.
At a gathering in Switzerland from June 28 to July 2, 75 Libyans from all sectors of society, chosen by the UN as part of a reconciliation process, failed to agree on the terms of the December legislative and presidential elections. “The 5+5 joint military commission (the two rival camps) postponed the reopening of the coastal road to connect the eastern and western parts of the country to protest the failure to take decisions that will facilitate the holding of the elections on time, to protest the stalemate on the withdrawal of mercenaries, foreign fighters and foreign forces,” said Kubis. The UN estimates there are more than 20,000 mercenaries, including Russians, Syrians, Chadians, and Sudanese, and foreign troops, most of them Turkish, deployed in Libya.
The UN envoy also indicated that a budget could not be adopted this week and that staff salaries for the opposition had not been paid. During the meeting, held in the presence of Libyan Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, whose country holds the Security Council presidency for July, stressed that “progress is possible” in Libya. “It is imperative that the electoral calendar be respected,” he insisted. “We can in no case compromise on the date of December 24,” he added, recalling that the UN had the option of imposing sanctions on those blocking the peace process. Le Drian also called for establishing a “timetable” for the withdrawal of foreign forces deployed in Libya, which he said could begin with the departure of Syrian fighters.
Libya is trying to extricate itself from a decade of violence since the overthrow and death of dictator Moamer Kadhafi after a popular revolt in 2011. In recent years instability has been fuelled by the existence of rival powers in the east and the west of the country, against a background of foreign interference.
