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By Sami Zaptia.
London, 22 December 2021:
Ten former antagonists, now presidential candidates, met in Benghazi yesterday. The ten were:
- Khalifa Haftar
- Fathi Bashagha
- Ahmed Maiteg
- Aref Nayed
- Abdelmajeed Saif Al-Nasr
- Sharif Al-Wafi
- Othman Abdul-Majid
- Ashur Shuwail
- Mohamed Al-Muntasser
- Fadeel Lamin
In a very conciliatory statement on their behalf read out by Fathi Bashagha, the ten agreed on three vague and general points.
1-That the national interest is above all
2-That national reconciliation is a national choice
3-And that they would continuing the national initiative to unit Libyans
The meeting had already anticipated ahead of the official HNEC announcement that the elections would not take place on 24 December this year. Its aim was to anticipate what would, could and should happen post-24 December.
Reports have said that the ten discussed the creation of a new government to take over from the Abd Alhamid Aldabaiba’s Government of National Unity. The ten in effect represent an anti-Aldabaiba front.
Disquiet in western Libya – and especially Misrata
The meeting with Hafter has caused much disquiet in Western Libya. Memories are still fresh in Tripoli of Hafter’s bombing of Tripoli and the carnage he caused. The booby traps, landmines unexploded ordinance that his forces had left in residential areas has not been forgotten.
Misratan forces were very much at the centre of the war effort against Hafter, and in the city, Bashagha and Maetig, who both hail from Misrata, have been lambasted as traitors and judas.
Politicians have no principles?
Friends and family members of those who had lost their lives in the anti-Hafter war effort have wondered loud as to why those they love had sacrificed their lives. Social media has been full of warning to citizens not to be duped into fighting another so-called principled war by these political leaders who clearly have none.
