The Rome MED This Week newsletter provides expert analysis and informed comments on the MENA region’s most significant issues and trends. Today we turn the spotlight on Libya, where the new National Unity Government led by Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah will be sworn in Tobruk and will have the difficult task of healing the country’s multiple wounds and leading it to the crucial elections of December 2021.
After ten years of instability and seven since the last unified government, Libya is now experiencing a truce moment with a new united cabinet that should lead the country towards the elections scheduled for next December. On March 10, the Tobruk’s House of Representatives (HoR), gathered in Sirte, gave its endorsement to Prime Minister-designate Abdelhamid Dbeibah and his list of ministers (which includes, among others, the first female Foreign Minister Najla el-Mangoush) paving the way for their swearing-in ceremony today in Tobruk. However, such remarkable progress lies on shaky ground as the country remains dangerously exposed to renewed violence and political fragmentation. Notwithstanding widespread jubilant reactions from the International community, formidable issues both in the political and military tracks remain unaddressed. First, the HoR’s decision to ignore specific conclusions reached by the UN-sponsored LPDF in February, chiefly the role of the reshaped Presidential Council and the need to frame a new electoral law, thus denoting deep political divisions among the country’s institutions that are likely to resurface in the coming months. Second, the Joint Military Committee 5+5, which brings together military officials from Tripoli and Tobruk’s administrations, is having difficulty creating the conditions for a sustainable peace due to its inability to reach an agreement about the departure of thousands of foreign mercenaries. Against this backdrop, Libya still struggles with prohibitive economic and humanitarian situations that the pandemic has exacerbated.
Experts from the ISPI MED network react to the new hopes and challenges facing Libya today.
