Libya urged to decide on new election date
Libya is being urged by several nations to set a date for its Presidential elections as soon as possible.
Libya has been urged by Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States to set a new date for its postponed presidential elections.
The five countries issued a joint statement calling on "relevant Libyan authorities to respect the aspirations of the Libyan people for prompt elections by swiftly determining a final date for the polling and issuing the final list of presidential candidates without delay."
This comes as officials responsible for Libya's first presidential election declared earlier this week that holding elections on Friday, as previously planned, would be "difficult."
The upcoming vote symbolizes a new beginning for the country more than a decade after the 2011 rebellion that deposed and killed Libya's previous ruler Muammar al-Gaddafi. The vote was intended to coincide with legislative elections as part of a UN-led peace process. However, the UN special envoy Jan Kubis resigned two weeks prior.
Talks of delays had been circulating for some weeks.
The head of the parliamentary committee in charge of the election informed the assembly's speaker that "after consulting the technical, judicial, and security reports, we inform you of the impossibility of holding the elections on the date of December 24, 2021."
No alternatives to Friday were suggested. Later the same day, the country's electoral authority, the HNEC, proposed postponing the vote until January 24.
A new timeline is to be decided on Monday by the Libyan Parliament.
Part of the controversy was an elections bill enacted by speaker Aguila Saleh, which opponents believe evaded due process and favored his colleague, eastern military ruler Khalifa Haftar.
Ghaddafi's son Seif al-Islam, was another candidate, a polarizing icon from the previous government.
Since a truce in October 2020, Libya has seen a year of peace, following a year of onslaught by Haftar's troops on Tripoli.
The possibility of war in Libya is worrying due to the large quantities of weapons present.
Libyan Electoral Commission to postpone announcing candidates
The HNEC in Libya on Monday announced that there is a possibility that the announcement of the preliminary lists of candidates for the House of Representatives will be postponed due to an unforeseen increase in the number of applications to run for the Libyan elections.
In a statement, the Commission said: “Given that the number of requests to run for parliament has exceeded expectations, the audit and review process will take a longer period of time than planned, which will force the Commission to briefly postpone the process of announcing the preliminary lists of candidates for parliamentary elections.”
According to the statement, the High Electoral Commission affirmed its neutrality and that it is not politically aligned with any party whose interest lies in postponing the Libyan elections processes, which 2.5 million citizens have been awaiting.