Libya: House of Representatives begins it work

The newly elected House of Representatives pressed ahead as planned and held its opening session on 4 August in Tobruk. Around 158 members of the 188 representatives who have been elected to the house so far attended the session with most of them from the liberal and federalist currents.

The Islamists’ efforts to hold the handover of power in Tripoli, rather than in the east, were a complete failure and, predictably, led to the session being boycotted by the Misratans and the Islamists, who insisted that it was unconstitutional. Even their attempts to hold a parallel meeting in the capital proved disastrous and their number was so small that no-one turned up.

Meanwhile, members of the outgoing GNC made an appeal to the Supreme Constitutional Court to rule on whether the sessions in Tobruk are legal because they should have been held in Benghazi. However, no decision will be forthcoming any time soon because the court is on holiday until September.

Despite the fuss they are making, however, the Islamists have been completely outmanoeuvred by their liberal rivals. On top of the fact that such a large number of MPs attended, the first session of the new ruling body was given international recognition through the attendance of representatives of Arab and other foreign governments, as well as from the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Africa Union (AU). Further legitimacy was afforded to the house when representatives from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and the US - who held a meeting in Washington this week on the margins of the US-Africa Summit - gave their backing to the House of Representatives.

It, therefore, seems that Libya and the rest of the world is accepting the new house as a fait accompli despite the Islamists and Abu Sahmaine’s objections. This has left the Islamists in an extremely weak position and means that their winning the battle on the ground is more important than ever. As such, Libya might well end up having a political arena dominated by the liberals while the ground itself is in the hands of the Islamists.

For more news and expert analysis about Libya, please see Libya Focus and Libya Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Libya's 2014 Budget is finally passed

On 22 June the long awaited 2014 Budget originally submitted to the Congress in January by the then Prime Minister, Ali Zidan, was passed. This came as a surprise to some Congress members who had expected to debate the issue in a session on the 22 June. Having waited almost all day for there to be enough members present to reach 94 - the required number of members present to be able to hold an official consultative session - the Congress was told that the budget had been passed on a technicality.

As Libya Politics & Security – 16.06.14 explained, the Al-Thanni government declared last week that the Congress had 120 days from the budget’s initial submission to debate the law, after which time the government had the right to issue a financial mandate to ratify it. Al-Thanni therefore scored a bit of a coup by getting the law passed in this way, despite the fact that certain Congress members were keen for the budget to be reduced. 

The Central Bank may, however, still object to the budget being passed in this fashion, although it is not clear whether it has a legal right to do so. The budget stands at LD56.5 billion (US$45 billion). Given the crisis in revenues caused by the disruptions at the oil ports, a significant portion of this money is expected to come from a reserve fund at the Central Bank that was set up by Colonel Qadhafi as a fund for future generations. Whether the Central Bank will agree to this fund being used also remains open to question. 

It is clear, however, that Libya cannot fund itself from oil revenues alone. The budget committee in the Congress based the 2014 budget on a projected annual oil production of 600,000 b/d but the country has clearly fallen woefully short of this. Thus drawing on this LD16 billion fund, plus some of the central bank’s foreign reserves, therefore seems to be the only solution.

For more news and expert analysis about Libya, please see Libya Focus and Libya Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Saadi Qadhafi extradited to Libya

Saadi Qadhafi, the third son of Libya’s deposed dictator Muammar Qadhafi, was extradited early today from neighbouring Niger back to Libya. According to a statement posted on the government’s official Facebook page, Saadi is currently being held in the high-security Hadaba Prison in Tripoli.

"The Libyan Government thanks the President of the Republic of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, we also thank the Niger Government and the people of Niger for their cooperation with the Libyan Government in pledging its commitment to the treatment of the accused on the principles of justice and international norms in dealing with prisoners. God save Libya.”

Unofficial pictures were also released by the government-backed militia holding the businessman and former professional footballer, allegedly showing Saadi dressed in a blue prison uniform having his head shaved. There is a high likelihood that he will face the death penalty.

Libya has been seeking his extradition since he fled to Niger in the wake of the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted his father. Niamey had previously refused to hand over Saadi around the time of the first anniversary of the February uprising because they feared he would be executed if he returned to Libya. A government spokesperson for the Nigerien authorities, Marou Amadou, said that it would only extradite Saadi “to a government which has an independent and impartial justice system”.

Following this request from Tripoli, Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou said any extradition requests would be viewed on strict legal merits alone, without referring specifically to the Saadi case. He had originally been granted asylum in November 2011 on humanitarian grounds, shortly after Interpol issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with allegations of forcefully misappropriated property and armed intimidation when he was head of the Libyan Football Federation. As a member of the ICC, Niger was obliged to extradite Qadhafi.

Saadi’s extradition is a real coup for the Libyan authorities. He was one of the most hated figures in the Qadhafi regime and arguably the most disliked of all Qadhafi’s sons. He had a reputation for being exceptionally brutal and is remembered in Benghazi particularly for his bulldozing of the Al-Ahli SC (Benghazi) stadium in an act of revenge after his football team, Al-Ahli SC (Tripoli), lost to the opposing side.

There is likely to be ongoing jubilation in Libya at the news. Congress is congratulating the families of the martyrs and the revolutionaries and is thanking Niger. This will serve as a reminder to a deeply troubled country of why they launched the uprising in the first place. 

For more news and expert analysis about Libya, please see Libya Focus and Libya Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Libya: Preliminary results of Constitution Committee elections

The preliminary results of the elections for the constitution committee, or Sixty Committee, which was established to draw up the country’s new constitution, were released this week. Although most of those elected are not well known, the initial results indicated that the liberal trend did well.

So far, only 47 out of the committee’s members have been declared because voting has yet to take place for the remaining 13 seats. Two of these seats remain empty because they were set aside for the country’s Amazigh (Berber) minority which boycotted the elections on the grounds that the Amazigh were under-represented in the committee and because they were given no guarantee that their rights would be protected in the new constitution. 

The other 11 seats remain unfilled because the elections to these posts could not go ahead on 20 February as a result of various security issues. Despite the fact that the Higher Election Commission announced that voting would take place for these seats six days later, similar disruptions and security violations occurred, meaning the re-runs did not go ahead.

In such circumstances it is difficult to see how this committee can start work. This means that the constitution writing process is likely to be delayed even further, suggesting that Congress’ Plan B for early elections will almost certainly have to be implemented, providing that the Congress itself lasts that long. 

Indeed, the head of the Higher Election Commission, Nouri Al-Abbar, who resigned this week (see below), informed the GNC that “in the best circumstances and even with the availability of logistical support, the earliest time that elections can be held is between 5 to 10 months”. Whether Libyans will agree to wait that long has yet to be seen.

For more news and expert analysis about Libya, please see Libya Focus and Libya Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Libya: Violence in Benghazi continues

It has been another week of violence in Benghazi with state forces clearly no closer to curbing the campaign of assassinations and attacks that have blighted the city for months. As the spokesperson of the Joint Security Chamber in Benghazi, Ibrahim Al-Sharaf, described, “the security situation in Benghazi is still tense… The assassinations are continuing.”

On 7 February the imam of the Al-Ansari mosque in the Hadaiq area, Sheikh Atif Al-Madouli, was shot dead by gunmen as he was returning from Asr prayers. Al-Madouli is believed to have worked for the external intelligence services under the former regime.

Meanwhile, there have been a series of explosions targeting civilian locations. On 5 February, a gunman threw a grenade into the playground of a private primary school in Benghazi’s Tabalino district. The attack occurred at around 11.00 when the school playground was full. Six children were injured in the attack.

Then, on 9 February, two bombs exploded at dawn in the city. One exploded at the Arous Al-Bahr (Bride of the Sea) restaurant on the corniche. It appears that bags full of explosives had been planted all around the restaurant and destroyed it completely. The other blast occurred in Ghazir Street and was the result of a booby trapped car. It is unclear who was behind these attacks, and why these particular targets were selected, but restaurants are often associated in the minds of Islamist militants as places of vice and decadence.

It was also reported that a booby trapped car was found on the same day behind the headquarters of the Special Forces in Benghazi. Security forces are reported to have discovered 350 kilos of TNT at the site.

These attacks were followed by another explosion at dawn on 10 February in a house in the Al-Laithi district. It is currently being reported that two people were killed in the blast but this explosion actually appears to have been the result of badly stored weapons and ammunition.

For more news and expert analysis about Libya, please see Libya Focus and Libya Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Libya: Political Exclusion Law Committee finally gets going

 

The 77-member Committee of Applying the Standards of Taking Up Public Posts, the body tasked with implementing the political exclusion law, has begun its work in earnest. This week, the committee, comprising mainly those who were part of the old Integrity Committee, summoned 11 members of the Congress to inform them that the Political Exclusion Law applies to them.

Four of these 11 have already attended committee sessions and all demanded that they be given one week to prove that the law is not applicable to them. It appears that the committee granted them their request and that they will all have the chance to defend themselves. The remaining seven from this first batch are due to attend hearings with the committee this coming week.

 

This first group is clearly just the tip of the iceberg and represents the first set of cases that the committee had been able to work its way through. According to the committee, out of 200 Congress members, so far only 98 of them have actually completed and handed in the compulsory forms distributed by the committee that oblige members to provide details of their past. Implementation of the law is clearly going to be a long, drawn-out process.

 

For more news and expert analysis about Libya, please see Libya Focus and Libya Politics & Security.

© 2013 Menas Associates

Libyans fear armed confrontation

 

The situation remains tense throughout most of Libya, especially in Tripoli, as uncertainty, fear and widespread rumours of a possible coup and armed confrontation abound. Quite who might attempt a coup and which groups might be involved in armed confrontation is not at all clear, as the country totters on the brink of chaos.

 

A 20 August report in the London-based Guardian spoke of “growing fears of an Egypt-style standoff between the ruling Muslim Brotherhood and opposition forces, with rebels blockading key oil ports and the capital”.

 

The Brotherhood's Justice and Construction Party, which only won 10% of the vote and 17 of the 80 party list seats in the July 2012 election, might arguably now see itself as the main political power in the GNC, following last month's on-off decision of the largest coalition party, the National Forces Alliance, which won 48% of the vote and 39 of the seats last year, to boycott GNC sessions, at least temporarily.

 

But the real question at the moment is who, if anyone, can really claim to be governing the country, or to be the main political or military force in the land. With the government's authority crumbling, one diplomat in Tripoli was quoted this week as saying that “Congress has basically collapsed.”

 

In the present state of chaos, the word “opposition”, rather like “government”, conjures up all sorts of possibilities, some still vaguely real, others more fanciful, although the beleaguered government of Prime Minister Zidan is still nominally in charge. In fact, some analysts might argue that the mere fact that he is still the country's prime minister suggests that he might be in a slightly stronger position than he was a week or so ago, especially if Tripoli does not fall to “opposition forces” and if he is able to overcome the armed protesters who have been holding the country's oil terminals and production to ransom.

 

For more news and expert analysis about Libya, please see Libya Focusand Libya Politics & Security.

 

© 2013 Menas Associates