Confusion Engulfs Libya as PM Fights Replacement

Fathi Bashaga speaks to the press following his nominal appointment as Interim Prime Minister by Libya’s House of Representatives on February 10, 2022. Photo: via the Middle East Institute.

Earlier this month, Libya's House of Representatives (HoR) in Tobruk announced their nomination of Fathi Bashaga for Prime Minister, despite the position of Prime Minister in the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) being already occupied, by Abdulhamid Dbeibah, in Tripoli. Prime Minister Dbeibah refused to recognize the HoR’s authority. The HoR countered that the GNA had lost its legitimacy after postponing national elections in December, raising concern about the Libyan government's already tenuous hold on power in the North African country. Furthermore, the announcement came hours after Dbeibah was apparently attacked in an unsuccessful assassination attempt. 

Eleven years ago, long-time Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was removed from power by a swath of pro-democracy protests amid the optimism of the Arab Spring. In the summer of 2011, the African Union and most Western nations officially recognized the opposition-backed National Transitional Council (NTC), which had successfully grown from demonstrations in Benghazi to a coalition of militias and political groups which took control of the majority of the country. That fall, the NTC announced plans to hold free and fair elections.

In 2014, the NTC's Generational National Congress broke its promise to hold elections and Libyan warlord (and US citizen) Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) launched an ostensibly counter-terrorism campaign that saw them seize control of Benghazi and kick off a national civil war. Talks in Geneva in 2015 and 2016 split the country into two bases of power, with the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) working with the remnants of the NTC/GNC in Tripoli, the capital, and Haftar's LNA retaining de facto control over the eastern half of the country and the major city of Benghazi. The LNA formed a nominally elected government based around the Libyan House of Representatives in Tobruk. In 2019, the LNA launched attacks towards Tripoli, which were only repelled a year later when Turkey began providing military support to the GNA.

National elections were meant to take place in December of 2021-- candidates included Muammar Gaddafi's son and Khalifa Haftar himself -- but were then postponed indefinitely. It was the organization created by the UN to facilitate those elections, the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum, or LPDF, which elected Abdulhamid Dbeibah Prime Minister of the GNA in 2021. 

Now that the eastern-based parliament has proposed an alternative prime minister for the national government, there are renewed concerns that the awkward division of power between Libya’s east and west will collapse again into two parallel administrations. The day of the announcement, PM Dbeibah went on national television to argue that “[t]he parliament’s selection of a new government is another attempt to enter Tripoli by force.” The UN’s chief special advisor for Libya reportedly met with both Bashaga and Dbeibah this week, as dozens of armored vehicles rallied around Tripoli in a show of support for Dbeibah’s government. 

However, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic about political cooperation. While the HoR has historically been associated with Khalifa Haftar’s eastern power base, Fati Bashaga, a former Minister of the Interior, actually rose to prominence for organizing resistance against LNA forces during Haftar’s 2020 siege of Tripoli. On February 10, Bashagha visited Tripoli from Tobruk and said that he wanted to “open a new chapter” and “reach out to everyone.” The next day,  Dbeibah announced that his government would draft a new election law in the coming weeks. For the time being, the international community continues to endorse Dbeibah, assuming the GNA holds elections before the expiration of its mandate in June.