By Libya Herald staff.
Tunis, 6 January 2016:
The Tripoli-based Khalifa Ghwell administration has announced that it is replacing most of existing councillors . . .[restrict]on Brega council and has also separated Mizdah from Zintan, choosing a new municipal council there, pending elections.
In the case of Brega, it suggests financial regularities. However, the intervention there and in Mizdah is seen widely as political with the Tripoli regime looking to assert its authority over the municipalities.
A senior Tripoli official who did not want to be named told the Libya Herald that the Ghwell regime was using reports of irregularities in Brega in retaliation for its support for the House of Representatives.
In all likelihood, the move is likely to be ignored in Brega, 770 kilomtres fromTripoli and way beyond its control.
In the case of Mizdah, the move has already triggered opposition from the Committee for Municipal Council Elections (CCMCE). It had already advised the Ghwell administration that if Zintan municipality were split in two, there would have to be fresh elections in both successor parts. That was not feasible at the moment, it said, and that therefore nothing should be done at present.
The chairman of the CCMCE, Otman Gajii, has said that he will take action. “It is illegal. I will challenge it in the courts.” He also questioned why the Ghwell government had decided that when Mizdah does elect a new council it is to be organised by the Higher National Elections Commission rather than the CCMCE, designated by Law 59 setting up Libya’s municipalities as the body to oversee their elections.
Also in Mizdah, all seven councillors nominated by the Tripoli regime are male, despite the Law 59 stipulating that at least one must be female.
In other municipal developments, the Beida government has suspended the mayor of Marj and called on councillors to elected a new one, while in the Tripoli suburb of Suq Al-Juma’s, the first mayor is back in the job after being re-elected by his colleagues.
Hisham Al-Hashmi had resigned some months ago, allegedly as a result of pressure from Islamist hardliners, and was replaced by Jamal Al-Din Al-Shaibani. However, the latter’s selection was considered irregular and never officially confirmed. [/restrict]
