By Ashraf Abdul-Wahab and Hadi Fornaji.
Tripoli, 8 April 2014:
Abdullah Al-Thinni was today officially appointed as Prime Minister by the General National . . .[restrict]Congress (GNC) and asked to form a new government within a week.
“The GNC has appointed Thinni and given him authority full to form a new government,” GNC member Ahmed Langhi told the Libya Herald. Once approved by Congress, the government would work until Libya’s new parliament – the House of Representatives – was elected, he said.
“Thinni has already started work on forming a new government for the GNC to approve,” Prime Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Lameen said.
The move was widely expected. Following the decision to sack Ali Zeidan, there had been deadlock in the GNC over the two front runners being considered by Congress to replace him, Omar Al-Hassi and Mohamed Abu-Baker. Al-Hassi was seen as the choice of the Islamist bloc while Abu-Baker was favoured by a significant number of non-Islamists. By last week, it was clear that a growing number of Congress members had cone to the conclusion that Thinni, as compromise candidate, was also the logical one as well.
Although believed to be reluctant to do the job, Thinni yesterday submitted a letter to the GNC demanding that he and his government be given more power and authority. The letter said that, unless these powers were given and the GNC stopped interfering in the government’s affairs, Thinni and his ministers would resign.
GNC spokesperson Omar Hemaidan said that Congress had taken into account Thini’s request for more power to run the government effectively. [/restrict]
