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By Ashraf Abdul Wahab.
Tripoli, March 12: The National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL) will launch its election campaign for June’s constituent . . .[restrict]assembly election on Thursday. At a meeting at Tripoli’s Rixos hotel it will officially declare itself a party.
The NFSL was founded in 1981 and was for many years the main organisation opposed to the Qaddafi regime. Prime Miniser Abdurrahim Al-Kib was a former member.
The organisation saw its membership and support decline in recent years but has been actively recruiting and rebuilding its image in the past three months.
Two days ago, it joined other parties and organisations in attacking federalism in Libya. That followed last week’s establishment in Benghazi of the Cyrenaica Transitional Council calling for Libya to go back to a three-state federation.
In a statement, it has said that it “does not support the federal state choice and believes that the form of the state is a matter to be agreed upon by the Libyan people. Our stance regarding this issue was made clear by the Secretary-General of the Front and his deputy”.
It said that a federal system in Libya would threaten the country’s unity, although it also emphasized that the centralized management system of the state was objectionable.
The NFSL also insisted that “arrangements must be made to ensure the planned elections for members of the National [constituent] Congress take place on time”. This, it said, must be done “within the framework of integrity and transparency, bearing in mind the urgent need to address all reservations expressed about the election law and especially the question of the distribution of electoral districts.”
The NSFL has called upon all groups to stop hurling accusations at each other. It said it deplored accusations of treason and infiltrators and of promoting regional division or threatening to use force or any other means. Use of these methods, it said, would only lead to further tension.
Instead, it called for “a constructive dialogue that aims to unite and bridge the differences, overcome the problems, and reach a national consensus in order to preserve the national unity, and solve all outstanding problems and restore lost confidence.”
It criticised the government for doing too little to decentralize Libya. “Centralization is still to this day being practiced, not only in the government’s management of the various Libyan cities but also in the performance of the National Transitional Council and the government by means of centralizing power, authority and the control of decision-making. Such actions negatively affect performance and halt the progress of many measures, procedures and initiatives.”
It stressed the need to accelerate “implementation of these demands, giving top priority to difficulties encountered by people daily and urging the transitional authorities to start the initiative of establishing plans and measures to end the problem of centralization of government previously used by the collapsed regime. ”
The NFSL particularly stressed the need to consult the youth who had made the revolution, emphasizing that it was a people’s revolution and not a revolution of a region or tribe.
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