By Ayman Amzein.
Benghazi, 20 January 2016:
Beida municipal council has warned the Constitutional Drafting Assembly that if it does not complete its . . .[restrict]work and publish a draft constitution by 26 March it will have to leave of the town, sources there have told the Libya Herald.
This follows protests yesterday against the CDA during which a militia said to be linked to the local council forced staff at the CDA headquarters in the old parliament building in Beida to leave the premises. According to one report, they were not allowed to take their personal belonging or their vehicles with them.
Local residents speak of growing exasperation in Beida, as in many Libyan towns, at the conditions under which people have now to live, with power cuts, no cooking gas and no cash in the banks fact of daily life. These are now being directed at the interim government and the CDA.
Two days ago, in a similar development, the council ordered the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thini to quit the city within 24 hours, again as a result of rising local public anger at the lack of electricity and other worsening conditions.
Most members of the government are not presently in Beida, however.
The mayor of Beida indicated to this newspaper two months ago that patience with both the interim government and the CDA was running out. “I am dealing with them [the government] as if they don’t exist,” he said, accusing it and the CDA of caring only about their own interests.
In a move increasingly typical of Libya’s rivalries and demonstrating continued local rivalries, nearby Marj council has now invited the Thinni government to the relocate there. [/restrict]
