Africa Intelligence has reported that the United Nations Secretary General’s special advisor, Stephanie Williams, is now in a diplomatic race against time and her role is to try and prevent the peace process she laid out in late 2020 when she was an acting head of the United Nations Support Mission for Libya (UNSMIL) from going completely off track.
According to the report, on 19 December, Williams convened a gathering to pitch a new electoral roadmap to representatives of the US, France, Italy, the UK and Germany. Her new proposal would push back both ballots – the presidential and parliamentary elections – by four to six months.
“This would allow the High National Electoral Commission, which had failed to finalize the list of candidates on time, to complete its task.” The report added, saying it would also put Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbiebah candidacy on a legal footing.
The report said that the presidential hopeful had not provided for the legal period required between leaving his prime minister’s seat, which he only handed over to Ramadan Abu Janah on 6 December, and the 24 December election.
Williams is also understood to have indicated that Haftar and the other official candidates would remain in the running under this scenario. Her plan, however, does not provide a place in the presidential race for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. Muammar Gaddafi’s son is still under an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for his alleged role in crimes against humanity during the 2011 revolution.
Williams’ proposal has met with considerable opposition. Among the five nations at the meeting, the UK and Italy are in favor of separating the two elections to first hold the legislative ballot and then run the presidential race. Both countries strongly support Dbeibah and this scenario would automatically extend his mandate.
At the other end of the scale, it is highly likely Russia will oppose any attempt to exclude Saif Gaddafi as very early on, it chose to back the return of former Gaddafi loyalists to the political scene.
