How Can the Libyan Crisis Be Resolved After America's Removal of the Coup d'état Leader?

Abdelkader Hawili, a member of Libya's Supreme Council of State, said coup d'état general Khalifa Haftar and the remnants of Muammar Gaddafi's regime are behind the subversive practices that took place under the guise of recent demonstrations in order to create chaos and steal the political scene.

Hawili, who is also a member of the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum, said in an interview with Al-Estiklal that forces in the capital Tripoli are aware of this scenario and stand in front of it, but at the same time, the Libyan people have the right to improve their services and resolve the current crisis.

In the first week of July 2022, several cities in western, eastern, and southern Libya witnessed demonstrations calling for the departure of all existing political institutions and the holding of elections without delay, including incursions into official bodies, primarily the Tobruk parliament building in the east of the country.

 

Remarkable Development

Hawili said Haftar and the Gaddafi regime's remnants were behind the plot with the aim of creating chaos and getting the situation out of control, but they have failed to do so.

Unfortunately, he added that there are some rebels who have gone along with them because of the poor performance of the government executive organs as well as the Parliament represented by the State Council and the Tobruk Parliament and as a result of their differences and their disagreements and disagreements on the constitutional rule and the orientation of the elections.

He said the Libyan people were waiting for the meeting of the lower and higher houses of the state in Geneva to improve conditions and looked forward, especially after the statements of UN envoy Stephanie Williams that things are good.

However, unfortunately, there was no solution as a result of trying to tailor a constitutional rule to the size of a particular person (Khalifa Haftar), the citizenship requirement, which we had already agreed in Cairo that dual nationals could not be nominated, so the dialogue failed again.

On June 30, 2022, Special Adviser on Libya Stephanie Williams announced the end of meetings of House of Representatives Speaker Aguila Saleh Issa and State Advisory Council Khalid al-Mishri in Geneva without agreeing on outstanding points of contention, most notably the conditions for running for president.

Hawili also saw the setting fire to the Tobruk parliament building as a message from Haftar to Aguila Saleh that he could not work without his protection, and we saw that the 106th Battalion, which is entrusted with protecting the House of Representatives, withdrew before the demonstrators arrived.

He added that this explains the fact that Haftar's wish with arson and vandalism shows Saleh's inability to protect himself and confirms that he can only continue to agree with him.

On Haftar's future, a member of Libya's Supreme Council of State explained that Haftar had only one of the following four options:

- Either he is a dead person, such as his associates Mahmoud al-Werfalli, Wanis Bu Khamada, and Ibrik al-Lawati.

- Or be displaced, such as dissident Mohamed Hijazi.

- Or to be in prison like some of the officers in Haftar's hand now.

- Or be someone who works without a will, as is Aguila Saleh now and Fathi Bashagha.

He confirmed that there were plans by the former regime to spread chaos in the country in order to assure the people that they were best able to serve him, and this was highlighted in areas controlled by Haftar and Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and did not occur in areas under the control of the Government of National Unity.

 

Next Step

On the fate of the dispute between the two houses, Hawili explained that the UN mission should intervene to end the crisis, as referring the matter back to the Lower and Higher Houses of the State would not resolve the crisis because members of Parliament could not vote publicly against Haftar's wishes.

He added that the issue could also be referred to the Libyan people by drafting a draft constitution according to the terms of the candidacy he sees, as well as the House of Representatives drafting a constitution according to the conditions of candidacy he sees, and the two bills are presented to the people to choose between them.

He also pointed out that going to parliamentary elections may be largely resolved because going to presidential elections is very difficult and not agreed to date and has caused many problems, and the mission should press the House of Representatives and its supporting States to accept parliamentary elections to unify the legislature as soon as possible.

With the departure of the current bodies, the conflict in Libya would end because it was already a political problem since the political divide in 2014 had caused the problem, which had branched out into security, military and economic, and had social implications and if the political problem were resolved, the division would end.

He stressed that any solution that does not result in the termination of the work of the Council of State and the House of Representatives would not be a viable solution. The work of these two houses must be terminated to solve all Libya's problems. The legislative authority will be unified, and all problems will be resolved by presidential elections thereafter.

On the fate of the Dbeibeh and Bashagha governments, Hawili said that the latter's government was born dead in the first place and for the first government in the event of the election of a new legislative authority that would choose a new prime minister to form his government and present it to the House of Representatives and then hand over power to the new government.

On the possibility of uniting the two governments, he ruled out that this step would solve the problem.

On the security front, a member of Libya's Supreme Council also ruled out a security lapse after the crisis of fabricated demonstrations was contained and an attempt to destabilize the country's security and stability was thwarted.

He said that the intentions of opportunists who take advantage of the suffering of the Libyan people had been revealed, and their ugly faces have shown that they do not want a solution to the crisis as much as they want to destroy their homeland.