By Libya Herald reporter.
Tunis, 27 February 2016:
A preparatory meeting of the proposed State Council has been endorsed by UN Special Envoy . . .[restrict]Martin Kobler.
“I welcome &strongly support 40 GNC meeting today in Tripoli to prepare 1st mtg of State Council (SC): right way forward, strengthens SC &LPA”, he tweeted today.
The membership of the State Council is something of a grey area, as is the status of its existence at present.
Under the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA), signed in Skhirat and endorsed by the UN Security Council, 134 of its 145 members are to be chosen by the General National Congress’s presidency (i.e. the office of Nuri Abu Sahmain) from among those who were elected on 7 July 2012 and still participating in the GNC last December. The remaining 11 are to be members likewise elected in July 2014 but who have since resigned or otherwise ceased to take part in its sessions.
However, Abu Sahmain has refused to cooperate. As a result, the deputy president of the GNC, Salah Makhzoum announced three weeks ago that he had drawn up his own list of members. He is reported to one of eight members the GNC then decided to expel.
Kobler and the UN have evidently decided to run with Makhzoum’s list.
Earlier this week one of those appointed to the Council by Makhzoum, Belgassem Gzeit, announced that a “consultative” meeting of the State Council would take place to appoint a committee to draft the council’s procedures and regulations. He indicated the committee would comprise Abdussalam Safrani, the Justice & Construction Party member from Zliten; Shaban Abu-Setta (independent, Nalut), Majda Al-Falah (J&C, Hay Al-Andalus) and Lamia al-Sharif (National Central Party, also Hay Al-Andalus)
The regulations would have to be approved at the council’s first official meeting.
Gzeit, from Misrata, was another of those expelled by the GNC. He led the pro-LPA group there.
Until the House of Representatives incorporates the LPA into the 2011 Constitution, the State Council has no legal status. However, Gzeit and the others appointed to the State Council by Makhzoum are claiming that under Article 67 of the LPA it, like the Presidency Council, it now exists.
Article 67 says: This Agreement shall enter into force once it is endorsed and adopted in its entirety and signed by parties to the Libyan political dialogue. [/restrict]
