While Fathi Bashagha was appointed last Thursday as Libya’s new Prime Minister by the Parliament, his predecessor Abdelhamid Dbeibah still refuses to step down, worsening the country’s political woes of the past decade.
Plunged into a civil war since the death of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya is once again in the quagmire of a major political crisis with two conflicting Prime Ministers in Tripoli. At the center of this rivalry is access to central bank funds and international recognition.
Last Thursday, the Libyan parliament unanimously elected former Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha, 59 as the new head of government to replace Abdelhamid Dbeibah. But Bashagha’s election is creating more problems than it solves. Outgoing Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah, who has the backing of the United Nations, has said he “will not accept any new transitional phase or parallel authority. He added that “his government will remain in office until elections are held and that he will only hand over to an elected government.”
UN supports Dbeibah
This position was challenged by the influential Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, who said that “Dbeibah’s mandate has expired” since the postponement of the December 24, 2021 presidential and parliamentary elections. Dbeibah, appointed in February 2021 to head a new transitional government under a UN-backed peace plan, has insisted that he will continue with his roadmap to unify the institutions and lead the country to presidential and legislative elections.
In this mission, he can still count on the United Nations, which, through the voice of its spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, supported Thursday evening the appointment of Fathi Bashagha as the new Prime Minister, said it would continue to support the government Mr. Dbeibah.
His successor Fathi Bashagha, a former Interior Minister between 2018 and 2021, has the support of the Tobruk-based parliament and its influential Peaker Aguila Saleh. He is especially sponsored by Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the strongman of the oil-rich east of the country, supported by Russia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates.
On Thursday evening, hours after his election, Fathi Bashagha landed in Tripoli on a plane chartered by Marshal Haftar’s son under the protection of Zawiya militias and some armed groups from Misrata. While his predecessor Dbeibah, who sits in Tripoli, is still under the security of the 444 Brigade, the elite unit of the Libyan army and a brigade of Misrata.
Financial stakes, oil
In this power struggle between the two Prime Ministers, every effort is being made to win the support of the Misrata militias deployed in Tripoli. The two executive ministers, both from Misrata in the east, 200 kilometers from the capital Tripoli, have support in the west of the country, which is still under the control of the loyalists, which could lead to clashes between militias with shifting and reversible allegiances.
But behind this new political crisis, there are huge financial stakes. Indeed, several armed groups and trafficking networks are ready to support Bashagha because they want to challenge the way the Central Bank was set up by Abdel Hamid Dbeibah with the support of Turkey. Bashagha and his allies denounce close ties Dbeibah, the governor of the Central Bank and Ankara. Bashagha and Haftar, two former adversaries who have become political allies, also want to obtain this international recognition in order to better control the oil in the east of the country.
This tug-of-war at the top of Tripoli, risks plunging the country back into a new split as in 2014. It took seven years of conflict for the UN, through a peace plan, to install a transitional government in February 2021 led by Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah.
CD/fss/abj/APA