By Libya Herald reporter.
Tripoli, 4 March 2016:
One of the more prominent members of the nine-man Presidency Council, has said that the . . .[restrict]Government of National Accord will go to Tripoli “very soon” regardless of whether there is a formal vote to approve it by the House of Representatives.
The member, who does not want to be named at present, said that most of the militias in Tripoli were now willing to accept the GNA. The remainder, he added, would cease to obstruct it once the GNA was there, despite their current vociferous hostility.
Supporting him, a top Tripoli-based civil servant who likewise asked not to be named said that the present hardline opponents of the GNA were like Qaddafi supporters in the city who, before its liberation, had sworn that they would bring chaos to the city if the revolutionaries ever entered it. In the event, he pointed out, they simply vanished.
The militias, the official stated, “want two things: money, and an amnesty,” adding that the Presidency Council had agreed to give them both.
“The militias see that the Ghwell government has no money”, he said. But they also know the GNA will have it, he added, noting that the militias would “go where the money was”.
Members of the Council, among them Ahmed Maetig, also say that if the HoR does not approve the government and the Libyan Political Agreement it will itself lose legitimacy, because its extension in office is legitimised by the political process.
Despite the predictions, the possibility that the GNA will go to Benghazi is now being actively canvassed.
On Monday, Deputy Prime Minister-designate Fathi Majberi said that if the GNA could not go to Tripoli, it would work from Benghazi once it was fully liberated. A number of HoR members have already said the same.
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