UPDATE - UN Security Council Endorses Parliamentary Elections In Libya - Special Adviser

The UN Security Council has expressed support for the electoral process of the Libyan parliament and the road map agreed on it, which is valid until June, Stephanie Williams, the UN Secretary General's special adviser for Libya, said in an interview with Sputnik

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th January, 2022) The UN Security Council has expressed support for the electoral process of the Libyan parliament and the road map agreed on it, which is valid until June, Stephanie Williams, the UN Secretary General's special adviser for Libya, said in an interview with Sputnik.

"I think that what the United Nations has done and continues to do, is to support the 2.5 million Libyans, who have collected their voter registration cards and want to go to the polls and to lift their voices and to really maintain the momentum for elections. Certainly the Security Council has endorsed the elections and has endorsed the road map that goes out until June of this year, and it is the purview of the Security Council to determine further steps for the Libyan political process," Williams said when asked what the UN will do if the elections are postponed in June again.

Williams also noted that the mechanism for changing the government by parliament, if necessary, is spelled out in internationally recognized documents signed by Libya.

"And in terms of the legitimacy of the current government, that again is also the purview of the Libyan parliament. But there are also internationally recognized agreements that Libyans themselves have signed, that set out what is the necessary quorum for the parliament to have in order to change the government.

So I think it's very important for the parliament to follow its own rules," she said.

Libya ceased to be a united country in 2011, when its leader Muammar Gaddafi was ousted and assassinated.

Since the conclusion of the 2015 Libyan Political Agreement, the UN, through its principal organs, including the UN Security Council, called on the parties to the conflict in Libya to work together "in a spirit of compromise" and to engage constructively in the inclusive political process, strongly condemning any attempts to undermine the UN-facilitated settlement.

The transition government was voted in at a UN-backed gathering of Libyan delegates in Geneva last March in the hope that it would lead the North African nation into a general election on December 24, but the polls were delayed after the eligibility of some of 98 candidates was questioned.

Imad Al-Sayeh, the head of Libya's high electoral commission, told the legislature that preparations for the presidential and parliamentary elections could take six to eight months, citing lengthy court appeals by presidential rivals.