UN Envoy Says Libyan Officials Don’t Want to Hold Elections

Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya and head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya Abdoulaye Bathily. (UN mission)
Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya and head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya Abdoulaye Bathily. (UN mission)
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UN Envoy Says Libyan Officials Don’t Want to Hold Elections

Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya and head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya Abdoulaye Bathily. (UN mission)
Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya and head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya Abdoulaye Bathily. (UN mission)

Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya and head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya Abdoulaye Bathily declared on Saturday that he has “the worst job in the world” after accusing the majority of Libyan officials of not wanting to hold the delayed presidential and parliamentary elections.

In an interview to France’s Jeune Afrique, the envoy acknowledged foreign interference in Libya, saying officials were exploiting this to conceal their failures.

The envoy underlined the need to hold elections to produce a unified authority and elect one president and one parliament.

Without this, the country will face more division, he warned.

The problem is that the majority of Libyan leaders don’t want to hold elections and don’t want stability to be restored, Bathily lamented.

They only care about making gains from oil revenues, he charged.

In addition, he said the mistrust between the east-based parliament and the High Council of State had obstructed attempts to draft electoral laws, he said.

He revealed that his attempts to bring together to dialogue parliament Speaker Aguila Saleh, High Council of State President Mohammed Takala, head of the interim Government of National Unity (GNU) Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, head of the Presidential Council Mohammed al-Menfi, and Libyan National Army (LNA) commander Khalifa Haftar have faced “a lot of resistance.”

Bathily stressed that the UN doesn’t want for the elections to lead to more instability or bloodshed in Libya.

The Libyans must be able to have a voice, but in order to do so, the leaders of this country must decide to assume their responsibilities, he went on to say.

They must cease their constant excuses that foreign meddling in Libya was preventing the crisis from being resolved, he urged.

Moreover, Bathily noted that Libya continues to produce 1.2 million barrels of oil per day, which is a massive amount for a country of 6 million people and which boasts massive capabilities.

Several countries are therefore, concerned about the fate of Libya, he remarked.

Furthermore, Bathily said the conflict that erupted between Israel and Haman on October 7 had further complicated his already difficult mission.

He added that his goal for the withdrawal of Sudanese, Chadian and Nigerien gunmen from Libya became more “complicated” after the eruption of the conflict in Sudan in mid-April.



Blinken Says Syria's HTS Should Learn from Taliban Isolation

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivers a statement to the press after the meeting with the foreign ministers of the Arab Contact Group on Syria in Jordan's southern city of Aqaba on December 14, 2024. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivers a statement to the press after the meeting with the foreign ministers of the Arab Contact Group on Syria in Jordan's southern city of Aqaba on December 14, 2024. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
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Blinken Says Syria's HTS Should Learn from Taliban Isolation

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivers a statement to the press after the meeting with the foreign ministers of the Arab Contact Group on Syria in Jordan's southern city of Aqaba on December 14, 2024. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivers a statement to the press after the meeting with the foreign ministers of the Arab Contact Group on Syria in Jordan's southern city of Aqaba on December 14, 2024. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Wednesday on Syria's triumphant HTS opposition group to follow through on promises of inclusion, saying it can learn a lesson from the isolation of Afghanistan's Taliban.
The movement supported by Türkiye has promised to protect minorities since its lightning offensive toppled strongman Bashar al-Assad this month following years of stalemate, AFP reported.
"The Taliban projected a more moderate face, or at least tried to, in taking over Afghanistan, and then its true colors came out. The result is it remains terribly isolated around the world," Blinken said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
After some initial overtures to the West, the Taliban reimposed strict restrictions including barring women and girls from secondary school and university.
"So if you're the emerging group in Syria," Blinken said, "if you don't want that isolation, then there's certain things that you have to do in moving the country forward."
Blinken called for a "non-sectarian" Syrian government that protects minorities and addresses security concerns, including keeping the fight against the ISIS group and removing lingering chemical weapons stockpiles.
Blinken said that HTS can also learn lessons from Assad on the need to reach a political settlement with other groups.
"Assad's utter refusal to engage in any kind of political process is one of the things that sealed his downfall," Blinken said.