By Libya Herald reporters.
Tripoli, 20 December 2016:
Abdulrahman Sewehli’s State Council has demanded that the Presidency Council to get on and shoulder its responsibilities under the Libyan Political Agreement. The intervention would appear to be a further step by Sewehli and his SC colleagues to boost their political role.
After prayers for those who died in the defeat of IS terrorist in Sirte, SC members agreed on the urgent letter demanding that Faiez Serraj’s PC start to resolve the security and financial crises. It said that the Presidency Council should do this by using its power as Supreme Commander of the armed forces. It did not however spell out how this might work.
The State Council also agreed that it should work with the House of Representatives to make any necessary changes to LPA and thereafter to the Constitutional Declaration which would bring the LPA into existence.
This position could be seen as contradictory since, as has been pointed out by UNSMIL, the State Council does not actually come into being until parliament ratifies the Libyan Political Agreement. And even at that point its role, as currently set out in the LPA, would be largely advisory.
This September the State Council, which has taken to adding “Supreme” or “High” to the front of its name, sought to arrogate to itself the legislative role of the HoR. The move was widely condemned and as widely ignored. That Sewehli and his colleagues are now talking about working with the HoR on amendments to the LPA and the Constitutional Declaration, suggests that they may have abandoned their September notion.
