TRIPOLI — Libya's parliament on Tuesday passed a
no-confidence vote in the war-scarred country's unity government, dealing a new
blow to UN-backed peace efforts and plans for December elections.
اضافة اعلان
Eighty-nine of the 113 lawmakers who attended the lower
house session in the eastern city of Tobruk voted to withdraw confidence from
the Tripoli-based administration of interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah,
spokesman Abdallah Bliheq said.
But an upper house based in the capital rejected the vote,
saying it violated established procedures, laying bare once more the extent of
divisions between the country's east and west.
The latest escalation came amid tensions between the House
of Representatives and Dbeibah's government, which took office earlier this
year with a mandate to guide the North African country to elections on December
24.
Those polls look increasingly unlikely to happen, casting
doubt on a United Nations-led process aimed at ending a decade of violence
since the fall of dictator
Muammar Gadhafi.
Tuesday's lower house vote, in a closed session overseen by
speaker Aguila Saleh, came less than two weeks after he outraged opponents by
ratifying an electoral law seen as bypassing due process and favoring
eastern-based military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
Haftar had waged a year-long assault on Tripoli, leaving
thousands dead, before reaching a formal ceasefire with his western opponents
in October last year.
While the ensuing UN-led peace process has led to a period
of calm, wrangling over electoral laws and the presence of foreign forces have
complicated moves towards a more permanent peace.
'Confusion and uncertainty'
Parliament spokesman Bliheq said the cabinet would become
"a caretaker government", although it would not be replaced.
But the High Council of State, the parliament's upper house
based in Tripoli, quickly rejected that.
"Our objective is to hold elections," HCS chief
Khalid Al-Mishri told journalists after meeting Morocco's chief diplomat Nasser
Bourita during a visit to Rabat.
"We don't want to place so much importance on things
that could get in the way of that goal. This government will keep working until
December 24, and we must ensure conditions that allow for elections to be
held."
An HCS spokesman also said Tuesday's vote contravened an
agreement signed in the Moroccan town of Skheirat in 2015.
A parliamentary source in the eastern city of Benghazi told
AFP that the vote had passed with only 113 votes, despite parliamentary rules
requiring a quorum of 120 members of the 200-seat house.
The HCS had also on Monday rejected the presidential
election law announced earlier this month, saying it had been passed
"without a legal vote or consensus" and calling for presidential
elections to be postponed for a year.
Critics of the law have pointed to a clause stipulating that
military officials may stand in presidential polls on condition they withdraw
from their posts three months beforehand.
That would allow for a presidential run by Haftar, who is
allied with the legislature's speaker Saleh and whose forces control eastern
Libya as well as parts of the south.
Dbeibah's transitional administration, the product of UN-led
talks in Tunis and Geneva, had won a lower house vote of confidence in March
but has irked members of that chamber — which has so far not held a vote on his
budget.
On Monday it had set up a commission of enquiry to examine
deals Dbeibah had signed, his expenses and nominations by his government.
Mohamed Eljarh, a consultant at Libya Outlook, tweeted that
Tuesday's no-confidence vote was "a major escalation" by the
parliament at a "critical juncture" that would "add to the
confusion and uncertainty" in Libya.
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