The UN envoy for Libya will launch a new initiative to hold elections this year by setting up a high-level organizing committee, he said today, in an effort to break a year-long deadlock that has put the return of armed forces at risk. conflicts.

Addressing the UN Security Council, Abdullahi Batili stressed that the commission will bring together representatives of political institutions, political and tribal leaders, civil society groups, security officials and others.

“Libya’s political class is going through a major crisis of legitimacy. One could say that most institutions lost their legitimacy years ago,” he said, referring to the need to hold elections.

Libya has been experiencing a brief period of peace since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi. The country was divided in 2014 between rival factions – one in the west and the other in the east – with the last major conflict ending in 2020 with a ceasefire.

However, the political process to resolve the conflict has stalled after planned elections in December 2021 collapsed due to disagreements over rules, including the right to run for main candidates.

The eastern-based parliament, the House of Representatives, meanwhile said the interim unity government, installed through a UN-backed process in early 2021, is no longer valid and installed a rival administration last year.

But the government has refused to step down until elections are held, and efforts by armed groups aligned with the rival administration to force it out of Tripoli have failed.

Talks since last year have focused on trying to get Libya’s two internationally recognized legislatures to agree on constitutional rules that would allow elections to be held.

The House of Representatives, which was elected in 2014 for a four-year term, unilaterally passed a constitutional amendment but without support from the Supreme Council of State, which emerged from a previous parliament elected in 2012.

Batili said the House of Representatives constitutional amendment was controversial in Libya, did not address contentious issues such as the right to run for candidates, and did not include a timetable for elections.

The last major international effort to break the deadlock, through a 2020 political forum, led to the formation of the current interim government and a road map for December 2021 elections, but was thwarted by internal political wrangling.