ReliefWeb

There are some good reasons, why the Libya Political Agreement (LPA) is in a dead-end road. Several things went wrong in negotiating and implementing the agreement from the very beginning. The delegates participating in the so-called “Libya Dialogue” in Geneva and Skhirat, Morocco, were not representative for the parties on the ground, in particular not for the powerful militias. Various facts were ignored, like the strong influence of armed groups, of tribal leaders and of Marshall Khalifa Heftar, who is the controversial Commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA), appointed by the House of Representatives (HoR), Libya’s international recognized parliament.

Fayez al-Serraj, Chairman of the Presidential Council (PC) and Prime Minister of the Government of National Accord (GNA), as well as several other members of the PC are in Libya widely considered a choice of Bernardino Leon, that-time UN Special Representative, and not of the Libyans. Serraj and the PC/GNA moved to Tripoli at the end of March 2016, where they still rely today on local, partially Islamist-leaning militias for security. In fact, Libya’s international recognized government is quite powerless. Not even the capital is under its control.

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