On Saturday Oct 14, 2017 the Dialogue Committees of the HOR and the Supreme Council of State met once again in #Tunis to discuss the adjustments to the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA).
Earlier last week the Security Council had endorsed the UN’s plan to resume an active political process in #Libya, and stated that the LPA, signed in December 2015, “remains the only viable framework” to end the Libyan political crisis, and that any attempt by Libyan parties to undermine the Libyan-led UN-facilitated political process is unacceptable, as reported on UN’s news center.
The delegations from the HOR and the Libyan Supreme Council of State agreed to restructure the Presidential Council on Sunday. The reformed council will consist of a president and two deputies.
The attendees announced at a press conference held in #Tunis earlier this month, in the presence of the head of the UN Support Mission in #Libya, Ghassan Salame, “they reached a preliminary understanding on the executive branch,” and they stressed that “the talks are not over and they will return to dialogue next week to fix the remaining points of disagreement.”
Salame met with the Drafting Committee on Saturday to adopt a transparent mechanism that ensures the existence of a mini-presidential council that reflects the unity of the country. Salame commented that he had high hopes in the next government’s ability to deal with the citizens’ living conditions, to be able unify public institutions, as well as to pave the country for a fair presidential and legislative election in a year’s time.
Discussions focused on different models for mechanisms of selecting the presidential council and the prime minister as well as discussing the powers of the presidential council and the government. UNSMIL stated that the members of the dialogue stressed the need to expedite the results of the election procedures as soon as possible to end the transition.
During the meetings, ArraedLG was updated by a member of the Amendments Committee of the Supreme State Council Amina Amtar, whom had initially denied the Committee reached an agreement on the mechanism of selecting the Presidential Council, and had also confirmed that all the proposals had been developed but not yet approved.
Later on Sunday a member of the HOR, Hassan Zarqa, stated that the two sides had reached an agreement to use a mechanism of lists to select members of the Presidential Council. Hassan added, according to the official website of the HOR on Sunday, that the amendment committee will discuss on Monday how the mechanism of lists will be conducted, in addition to the discussion of Article 8, and the functions of the Supreme Leader, and the restructuring of the Supreme Council of the State.
However, these matters have been at the core of Libya’s political and military instability and have yet to be resolved by the amendment committee.
