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By Libya Herald reporter.
Tripoli, 1 July 2015:
The General National Congress (GNC) negotiating team at the UN-brokered Dialogue negotiations being held in . . .[restrict]Skhirat, Morocco, has said that it will not return in time for further talks tomorrow, Thursday. In a statement today, Omar Hemidan, the GNC spokesman and a member of its Skhirat team, said that it had postponed returning until next week so that it could meet the full GNC for further consultations.
On Monday, UN Special Envoy Bernardino Leon said that both the GNC and the HoR teams were returning to consult their colleagues about the latest draft and had agreed to return in time for a reconvened meeting on Thursday.
There is a growing opposition within the GNC and among its more hardline supporters to participation in the Dialogue, especially after the appearance of the latest draft from UNSMIL which significantly reduces the role of the State Council. Ninety of its members are to be drawn from the GNC.
This morning there was an anti-Dialogue protest outside the GNC led by its president Nuri Abu Sahmain accompanied by Salah Badi and HoR boycotter Abdul-Rauf Al-Manaie.
On social media today, former Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur warned that there was now a smear campaign against the latest draft aimed at stopping the GNC from signing and trying to get it to boycott the process.
Questions are also being asked about the motives of many of Congress members who would not be eligible to become members of the 120-seat State Council.
Although GNC 90 members would be chosen to sit on the council from the GNC, they will be selected only from those originally elected in July 2012. The current GNC comprises many who have replaced those who resigned or who, under a law passed by the GNC earlier this year, were deemed to have resigned because they no longer turned up to its sessions.
Those who gain nothing from the Draft may decide they prefer drawing their salaries and expenses rather than vote themselves into early retirement. [/restrict]
