The UN Advisor on Libya said last Thursday that moving forward with elections was Libya’s best way out of the “perennial conflict over access to authority and resources”.
Stephanie Williams told Middle East Eye that the UN was focused on forming consensus on a constitutional basis and establishing a firm time frame for national elections to be held in Libya.
Williams said that ordinary Libyans had “no appetite” for a return to conflict, pointing to the “wise constraint” among local leaders that deescalated tensions on March 10 after an armed convoy associated with the Prime Minister-designate Fathi Bashagha began making its way to Tripoli.
Williams added that one can lurch from one temporary government to another temporary government, and these eternal power-sharing arrangements, but no one can escape the fact that they need to get the country to elections.
Williams said it was a “simple fact” that any interim, temporary government was going to suffer from a certain lack of legitimacy, as she reiterated the need for elections to be held as soon as possible.
