In Libya, Gazzini (Icg) skips the vote: “Everyone for the status quo”

“There is no concrete plan”, at least for now, to get Libyans to go to the polls for the first round of presidential elections on January 24, as proposed by the High Electoral Commission which announced the postponement of the vote initially set for next Friday, effectively passing the ball to Parliament. And here we seem to think more about the appointment of a new government, which takes the place of that of Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, to go on like this, without the vote. The status quo where “no one loses anything”. This is the hot comment of Claudia Gazzini, Libya expert of the International Crisis Group (Icg), who in an interview with Adnkronos invites us to “take the announcements on the date of January 24 with a grain of salt” and talks about a ” intense work for a plan B. ” Today’s announcement “is simply an attempt by the head of the electoral commission to rebound the responsibilities to Parliament, not to appear as the one who blocked the electoral project but – he observes – at the moment there is no concrete plan to hold the elections on January 24 “. While, continues the expert who in recent days warned of the risk of “institutional chaos” and of how the “Libyan factions” had “returned to their plots”, in “Parliament they all seem encouraged to focus in the coming weeks on the appointment of a new government “. ‘illusion to believe that the Libyans in power wanted change, we are back to square one’ Yesterday in Benghazi by Khalifa Haftar, a strongman from the east, there were several ‘candidates’ to vote, first of all Ahmed Maitig and Fathi Bashagha, former interior minister from Misrata. “I don’t know – says Gazzini – if this has laid the foundations for a strategy to support the appointment of a government or not”. Today in fact it is “as if nobody officially wants to say that the elections are canceled”. And Gazzini highlights the “paradox” because – he notes – “we were deluded that the Libyans in power really wanted change and said ‘yes’ to the elections” and “instead we are back to square one”. That is, “they want to maintain the status quo”, “interest groups want to keep their interests”, starting with “access to public funds”. And, he concludes, “we want to continue to replicate this idea of ​​appointing governments from above rather than from below”, thus seeking an “agreement so that no one loses anything and the situation remains as it is”.