Recent statements made by Sadiq al-Ghariani, Agila Saleh and Khalifa Haftar, were used and taken out of context to call for war and military escalation on all sides
1-A recent fatwa of Sadiq al-Ghariani about the closure of oil fields mentioned the islamic sharia punishment, and was interpreted as calling for bloodshed.
2- A discourse by the HoR speaker referred to « militias » in Tripoli and was interpreted as a call for war on the city.
3-Lastly, a statement by Khalifa Haftar on the « colonizers » in the West, was repeated in media outlets as meaning a call for repeating the 2019 attack on the capital.
Social media users and journalists have a responsibility to not instrumentalize political statements to call for violence or their own agenda. But religious, military and political leaders should also carefully use their words to avoid escalation
First, let’s look at the context of this escalation. It comes as the Roadmap for the preliminary stage for a comprehensive solution, approved by the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum in November 2020 is approaching the end of its 18 months timeframe, on June 21
This means the end of mandate of the Presidential Council and the #GNU; who derive their legitimacy from the LPDF (articles 3.2; 4 & 7)
The Roadmap does not plan for any alternative in the event of failure. It only states the following:
Article 4. A. 3: In the event of expiration of the period specified in paragraph 1 of this Article without achieving the required result, it is for the LPDF to decide on the progress of the constitutional process and the legislation needed for the achieving the elections
Article 4. C. 7: In the event that the required decisions cannot be issued within the specified deadlines, these decisions shall be referred to the LPDF to take action
Is reviving the #LPDF the next stage, should the #Cairo process fail ?
Let’s recall that this not the first time that constitutional deadlines or timeframes were violated in Libya’s transition
7 Feb 2014 marked the end of the mandate of the #GNC and under the pressure of the street a constitutional amendment & an election law were passed
This is the origin of the #HoR. The new parliament’s mandate was meant to be only 18 months, and has been extended for 6 extra years
The #GNA’s mandate of Fayez Serraj was defined for 1 year only as per the Libyan Political Agreement signed in #Skhirat – in fact it remained in place for another 5 years
Many feared that war would happen on 17 December 2017, which marked the expiration of the #LPA, but nothing really changed for another 2 years Sadly, history tends to repeat itself in #Libya.
