By Ahmed Elumami.
Tripoli, 16 March 2014:
A member of the February Committee has resigned over the General National Congress’ decision . . .[restrict]not to accept the committee’s plan for direct presidential elections.
Benghazi lawyer Younis Fanoush, who stood for Congress in 2012, accused it of acting in bad faith in its dealings with the committee from the start.
“I had doubts from the beginning that the GNC would accept the proposal for direct presidential elections, he told the Libya Herald.
“I said before the February Committee was formed that I was not ready to serve on it unless there was a clear commitment to adopt Plan B,” he said.
However, Fahoush said he had been persuaded by others that Congress would accept it.
Under the amendment of the 2011 Constitutional Declaration passed by Congress at the beginning of February, Plan B envisaged two institutions of governance while the new constitution as drafted and approved,,he insisted.
One, he said, would be the House of Representatives, the “legislative or parliamentary institution”; the other, the state president or the “presidential institution”. The balance, he said, had been devised to give Libya political stability.
On Tuesday, Congress voted for most of the February Committee’s proposal – which Fanoush said it had worked “very hard” – but not on direct presidential elections. It left this to the new legislature to decide.
There were widespread reports before the vote that the Muslim Brotherhood and its political allies were opposed to direct elections because they feared they would not win them.
In deciding last week to adopt the parliamentary elections only but not direct presidential elections, Congress had, Fanoush said, completely ignored the twin governance system it had called for. [/restrict]
