Election Postponed Last December, Libyan PM: Our Problem Today Is The Absence Of A Constitution

Libyan Interim PM Abdulhamid Dbeibah. (Wikimedia Commons/Govermant.ru/Government of the Russian Federation)

JAKARTA - Libya's interim prime minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah on Sunday called for a constitution to be formed, before holding pending presidential and parliamentary elections.

"Now more than ever, we need a constitution that protects the country and its citizens, and which regulates elections," Dbeibah said.

Libya plunged into violence years after the 2011 ouster and assassination, during the NATO-backed uprising against dictator Moamer Gaddafi that overturned the country's 1969 constitution.

After that, the bases and administrations of rival powers appeared in the east and west of the country.

After a landmark truce in 2020, the UN-led process saw elections scheduled for December 24 last year, but was postponed after months of tension, including over divisive candidates and a disputed legal framework.

The Libyan people "want free elections that respect their wishes, not an extension of the crisis with a new transition," Dbeibah said at a symposium in the capital Tripoli entitled: 'The first constitution'.

"Our problem today is that there is no constitutional or constitutional basis," he said.

The event brought together prominent figures from Libya's west including Khaled el-Mechri, who heads the High Council of State, a Tripoli-based body on par with Libya's senate and rivals the House of Representatives, which is based in the eastern Libyan city of Tobruk.

"Certain parties have exacerbated the crisis" with "custom-made" laws favoring certain candidates over others, Dbeibah alleges, referring to DPR Speaker Aguila Saleh's decision to ratify a controversial election law last September.

Critics say the move bypasses the legal process and supports the offer of Saleh's ally, eastern-based Khalifa Haftar. Dbeibah, Saleh, and Haftar all submitted their names for the presidential election.

An official from the elected commission tasked with drafting a new constitution, Daou al-Mansouri, said at Sunday's symposium the body had in July 2017 submitted a draft constitution to the DPR. The draft was supposed to be put in a referendum, which was never regulated.

For information, Saleh proposed the formation of a new commission for Libya and foreign experts to draft a new constitution on Tuesday last week.

He also called for the formation of a new interim government saying, by the end of January, a "definite" date for the postponed elections needed to be set.