TRIPOLI — Libya's
western-based upper house on Saturday defended a decision by lawmakers in the
country's east to designate a new prime minister as institutional chaos reigns.
اضافة اعلان
The
High Council of State (HCS) — a Tripoli-based body that is equivalent to a
senate — usually rivals the House of Representatives (HoR), based in the
eastern city of Tobruk.
The HoR this week "unanimously
approved" former interior minister Fathi Bashagha to head the government,
a move that left
Libyans with two prime ministers and threatened to spark a new
power struggle in the war-torn nation.
But
HCS head
Khaled El-Mechri on Saturday appeared to transcend the country's usual
east-west divide and distance himself from the Tripoli executive.
He
said a text accompanying last year's confidence vote in the government of
interim prime minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah "stipulated that its mandate
would end at the latest on December 24, 2021".
Bashagha's designation Thursday replacing
Dbeibah flowed from that text following a rare "consensus between
parliament and the HCS", Mechri added.
An influential figure in western Libya,
Mechri accused
Dbeibah's government of "fuelling a campaign against the
parliament and the HCS".
Dbeibah's administration had a mandate to
lead the country to elections on December 24, but the polls were cancelled amid
bitter divisions over their legal basis and the candidacies of several
controversial figures.
Dbeibah, a construction tycoon appointed a
year ago as part of UN-led peace efforts, has vowed he would "accept no
new transitional phase or parallel authority" and would only hand over
power to an elected government.
Bashagha and Dbeibah, both from Libya's
third city Misrata and both candidates for the aborted presidential poll, have
the support of rival armed groups in the west.
Armed groups converged on Tripoli from
Misrata on Saturday to support Dbeibah, an AFP journalist reported, raising
fresh fears of armed conflict.
Libya has seen a decade of turmoil since a
NATO-backed revolt toppled dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, leaving a
patchwork of militias vying for control over an oil-rich country riven by
regional divisions.
Experts have warned that Thursday's vote
threatens a repeat of a 2014 schism which saw two parallel governments emerge.
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