Interim Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah on Sunday registered as a candidate for the presidency despite having pledged not to do so as a condition of taking his current post, and despite contested election rules that might prevent him from standing.
Al-Dbeibah’s entry into a race that now features many of Libya’s main players of the past decade of chaos adds to the turmoil over a vote that is due to take place within five weeks, but for which rules have not yet been agreed.
Parliamentary and presidential elections on Dec. 24 were demanded by a UN political forum last year as part of a road map to end Libya’s civil war, a process that also led to the formation of al-Dbeibah’s interim unity government.
Photo: Reuters
Libya has had little stability since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi as the country fragmented among myriad armed groups. Government was in 2014 split between warring rival administrations based in east and west.
However, the disputes over the election threaten to derail the UN-backed peace process that emerged last year after the collapse of an eastern military offensive to seize the capital, Tripoli.
The elections are being organized under a law issued by Libyan House of Representatives Speaker Aguila Saleh in September that set a first-round presidential vote for Dec. 24, but that delayed the parliamentary election to January or February.
Al-Dbeibah and some major political figures and groupings in western Libya have criticized Saleh’s election law, saying that it was passed improperly, and have called for both votes to be delayed until there is agreement on the rules.
The electoral commission and Libyan courts are likely to rule on the eligibility of candidates in the coming weeks — a process that might itself stir new disputes.
Dbeibah is likely to be a frontrunner in the election after implementing a series of populist spending measures in the past few months, including infrastructure projects and payments to support young newlyweds.
The 63-year-old hails from one of Libya’s wealthiest business families, but he was not a prominent figure in his own right before the UN political forum chose him to lead the interim government overseeing the run-up to elections.
He has not yet said publicly why he has chosen to break the televised promise he made when he was appointed that he would play no role in the election.
Saleh’s law might also rule him out as a candidate because it requires him to step down from his position three months before the vote, which he did not do.
Al-Dbeibah’s best-known rivals include Saleh, Qaddafi’s son and one-time heir apparent Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, and Khalifa Haftar, commander of the eastern forces in the civil war.
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