Libya’s parliamentary speaker called Monday for a new interim government to be established in the capital Tripoli, noting that the current executive has outlived its mandate. Those tensions pit a long-standing ally of military strongman Khalifa Haftar against a Tripoli-based interim government formed last year. The Tripoli government was selected amid intensive diplomacy after an October 2020 ceasefire between warring eastern and western factions. The government’s mandate “expired due to a censure motion voted by parliament, and the fact that its mandate ended on December 24,” speaker Aguila Saleh said during a parliamentary session, in the eastern port city of Tobruk. The call comes as United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged Libya’s political factions and parties to hold safe, “inclusive and credible” presidential and parliamentary elections as soon as possible.

Source: The North Africa Journal January 18, 2022 16:15 UTC