The United Nations (UN) called for a final and courageous effort to break the deadlock over the long-awaited elections in Libya, as talks between the leaders of the two Chambers of Libya’s government began in Geneva, reported The Reuters.
On Tuesday, Khalid Al-Mishri, the Head of the High Council of State (HCS) and Aqila Saleh, the Speaker of the House of Representatives (HoR), began negotiation talks in the presence of the UN Advisor on Libya, Stephanie Williams.
“It is now the time to make a final and courageous effort to ensure that this historic compromise takes place, for the sake of Libya, for the sake of the Libyan people and the credibility of its institutions,” Williams said as she opened the talks.
Presidential and parliamentary elections, originally scheduled to be held in December last year, were meant to bolster an UN-led peace process following the end of the last major round of violence in 2020.
But the vote never happened due to several contentious candidacies and disagreements, over the polls’ legal basis, between rival power centres in the east and west of the country. Although the parliament has appointed a new government, the one installed last year through a U.N.-backed process refuses to step down.
The UN advisor said the two Libyan leaders needed to agree on timelines, modalities and milestones to guarantee a clear path towards holding national elections as soon as possible.
Notable, the latest round of talks between the Tripoli-based High Council and Saleh’s eastern-based House of Representatives (HoR), aimed at agreeing on a constitutional basis for a vote, ended last Monday without a deal.
Last week, the HoR-backed premier Fathi Bashagha said in a letter to UN chief Antonio Guterres that he would now be leading all efforts to bring elections to Libya at the earliest possible opportunity.
