By Michel Cousins.
Tunis, 26 September 2017:
The dialogue committees of the House of Representatives and the State Council started their discussions today to amend the Libyan Political Agreement so that it is acceptable to both bodies and can be approved by the HoR. They met in formal session in a Tunis hotel under the auspices of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).
Addressing the delegates at the opening of their proceedings which were attended also by a host of foreign ambassadors and representatives of international organisations, UN special envoy Ghassan Salamé said the two sides had a “duty” to come up with necessary compromises to make the LPA work. Libyans were fed up with going from one transition to another without any move forwards.
“Libyans are looking to you to open a new reconciliation page,” he told the committees. What was being asked, he said, was no more than limited changes to the agreement but these should be enough to see it approved by a vast majority of HoR members. This in turn would allow Libya to move towards the proposed national conference which would endorse, with possible changes, the constitution ahead of a referendum and then elections for a president and a new parliament.
Libya needed to be made to work again, he said.
“We have sleeping institutions that need to be woken up; divided institutions that need to be reunified; hijacked institutions that need to be returned [to the legal authorities]”, he explained.
Speaking afterwards at a press conference, Salamé said that the national conference should not be seen as an institution but as an event that would enable many voices other than those in the HoR and State Council to be heard. The hope was that it would reignite enthusiasm for the future and ensure that as many as possible took part in the subsequent elections.
