By Libya Herald staff.
Tobruk, 15 November 2015:
The House of Representatives will again not be able to meet this week to vote . . .[restrict]on the Libya Dialogue agreement and proposed Government of National Accord (GNA). The president, Ageela Salah Gwaider, flew to Paris yesterday where he plans to attend tomorrow’s and Tuesday’s UNESCO session marking its 75th anniversary.
This week, he was in Riyadh for the Arab-South American Summit.
He is expected to return to Torbuk next Thursday.
It is not yet known which international event he will go to the following week in order to avoid holding an HoR session, but it has become clear that at present he will go to any length to ‘legitimately’ avoid being in Tobruk during the working week. Outgoing UN Special Envoy Bernardino Leon who has not quite given up his post has already accused him of deliberately preventing the HoR from voting on the GNA. In his final report to the Security Council ten days ago he even hinted that he might be sanctioned for doing so, along with General National Congress president Nuri Abu Sahmain, whom he accused of likewise preventing that body from voting on the deal.
According to HoR sources, the reason is not so much that Salah Gwaider opposes the Dialogue deal and wants to block it as that he fears Libya will split if the vote goes through. HoR member Abubakr Buera has told the Libya Herald that eastern members of the HoR are so opposed to the names in the GNA and to the October version of the deal that, if it were approved by a majority consisting of western and southern members, they would appoint a new government which would, however, effectively run the east as a separate entity.
Two weeks ago, some 87 members, of whom just ten were from the east, signed a statement endorsing the GNA and the October Dialogue text. [/restrict]
