On 14 October, Khalifa Ghweil announced that the General National Congress (GNC)’s Salvation Government was back in business after Serraj’s Government of National Accord (GNA) failed to deliver, according to him. The GNC’s government declared its comeback from the GNC’s building where Abderahman Swihli’s High Council of State (HCS) conducted its business, for the last four months or so. Ghweil took control of the facility with support from the Presidential Guard which abandoned the HCS a few weeks earlier, after Swihli failed to pay salaries. The takeover by the GNC was condemned by Faieze Serraj, GNA, Martin Kobler, UNSMIL, and by the Neighbours of Libya gathering, which met in Niamey, last week. All three bodies insisted that the United Nations-brokered Libyan Political Agreement of 17 December 2015, was the sole framework for political transition in Libya.
Facts on the ground are different, however. The GNA went on a few days later to demonstrate the support it enjoyed among sections of the army in the east. A gathering of a few hundred army officers took place on 19 December, at Radisson Blu hotel, where they rejected any role for the military in politics, as well as disowned Khalifa Hafter as a war criminal. The gathering was attended by Faiez Serraj and among the officers present were Masrati military figures as well. The officers gathering gave Serraj 30 days to nominate all military and security posts. Meanwhile, Major-General Mohamed Al-Ajtal had talks with Algerian Deputy Defence Minister Ahmed Gaid Salah as part of the eight defence meeting of the 5 + 5 group of western Mediterranean countries. Serraj’s Presidential Council has not yet officially appointed a chief of staff, but Al-Ajtal’s representation of Libya at the 5+5 Group meeting in Algiers was understood by some observers as an indication of the GNA’s preference.
Militarily, there has been reports of the Jabal Nafousa Amazigh towns uniting under one single military command, which includes the Arab Zintan tribe. The latter has been in a loose alliance with Khalifa Hafter since Operation Libya Dawn ended Zintan’s control of Tripoli in summer 2014. All these developments coincided with the fifth anniversary of the fall of Qaddafi’s regime on 23 October 2011. Five years on, Libyans are struggling to navigate a particularly chaotic transition characterised by internal civil war, and regional and international intervention. Facing such a situation and two months before the end of the mandate of the GNA Kobler is trying to revive the Constitution Drafting Assembly, which met last spring in Oman, but was boycotted by 19 members, including three ethnic minority representatives. Kobler met with around 10 of them last week to convince them to agree in principle to the draft finalised in Oman, and postpone points of reserve later. Speaking on Al Nabaa TV, a representative of the boycotters let it be understood that Kobler’s approach was not that convincing.
Links for more information:
http://www.marsad.ly/en/2016/10/19/khalifa-haftar-war-criminal-final-statement
https://www.libyaherald.com/2016/10/20/libya-takes-part-in-55-defence-talks-in-algiers
https://unsmil.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=5662&ctl=Details&mid=6187
http://www.aps.dz/monde/47842
http://alnabaa.tv/news/view/9289
