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By Ajnadin Mustafa.
Tripoli, 30 September 2015:
A Benghazi-based federalist group has threatened to boycott the . . .[restrict]referendum on the new constitution unless the document adopts the 1951 federal dispensation.
With only three weeks to go before the Constitutional Drafting Assembly is due to present its final draft, the National Federal Bloc has also threatened that, if the fundamental law does not embrace federalism, it will set up a breakaway Cyrenaican state.
This would be called the “Emirate of Al-Senussi Cyrenaica, or Free State of Cyrenaica” it said in a statement issued yesterday. It accused the CDA of ignoring the demands of the Cyrenaican people.
It is however unclear the level of support that the group enjoys, as opposed to rival organisations such as the Cyrenaica Transitional Council of Ahmed Zubair Al-Senussi and Ibrahim Jadhran’s Political Bureau of Cyrenaica which in November 2013 got as far as swearing in a whole cabinet.
In addition to promoting federalism, the NFB has also supported the demands of three tribal groups who have now pulled out of the CDA. Last month, the members of Tebu and Tuareg tribes withdrew from the constitutional process in protest that minority rights are being ignored, while the Amazigh have boycotted the CDA from the start. [/restrict]
