By Saber Ayyub.
Tripoli, 15 October 2015:
The Constitutional Drafting Assembly (CDA) is to resume its meetings in Beida after two sessions in . . .[restrict]Ghadames.
“Most members will meet again in Beida on 20 October,” Sadiq Darsi, spokesperson of the assembly, told the Libya Herald.
He said that the assembly had gone to Ghadames to be in closer contact with the Amazigh, Tebu and Tuareg communities and to visit other parts of the country.
However, he stated, no final draft has been agreed as yet. There was disagreement over whether Libya should have one or two capitals.
Cyrenaican members (the CDA was elected on the basis of 20 members each from Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan) have insisted that there be two capitals – as in Article no. 188 of the country’s 1951 which states that “the United Kingdom of Libya has two capitals, Tripoli and Benghazi”. (In fact, the second capital became Beida, which alternated with Tripoli, and where the parliament building is npw home to the CDA.)
The Cyrenaican members want the government to be in Tripoli and the parliament to be in Benghazi.
Tripolitanian members insist that Tripoli be the sole capital with both government and parliament.
Last month, the CDA’s head, Ali Tarhouni, told this newspaper that the final constitutional draft would be ready by 20 October. [/restrict]
