25 November – 1 December: Third round of LPDF continues

Dec 2, 2020 | Libyan actors

On 25 November, Acting Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) Stephanie Williams convened the third round of virtual meetings of the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) following the in-person meetings that had taken place earlier in the month. In the meetings, participants continued discussion of the selection modalities for members of a new unity executive government to lead the fourth transition period up until planned elections of 24 December 2021. A new (fourth) round of talks was reported to be scheduled for 1 December, to be held virtually. Simultaneously, UNSMIL issued a communiqué concerning the Economic Dialogues and the need to devalue the dinar and establish an apolitical mechanism for doling out oil revenues.

From 23 – 28 November, more than 120 deputies from the Tubruq-based House of Representatives (HoR), Higher Council of State (HCS) and the boycotting Tripoli-based HoR met in Tangier, Morocco. They arguably represented a full quorum of the HoR needed to undertake legally binding decisions. They pledged to ‘end the divisions’ in Libya by convening a joint session of the two ‘parliaments’ when they returned to Libyan soil. The talks also produced a pledge by attendees to end ‘hate speech’ and ‘divisions’ that undermine Libyan institutions. The joint parliamentary session would reportedly take place in the Libyan desert town of Ghadames and would endorse the idea of parliamentary elections as part of the electoral timetable established by delegates at the UN-led Libya Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF). The HoR and HCS delegates said they would seek to seat their post-election ‘parliament’ in Benghazi. They did not use the power of the HoR and HCS to announce new heads of semi-sovereign institutions.

On 26 November, a European tracking system recorded that three military aircraft had landed at the al-Watiya Air Base coming from Konya, Turkey. The report also claimed that a military aircraft affiliated with the GNA had taken off from Tripoli’s Mitiga airport to Turkey.