The United Nations is starting an initiative for holding presidential and legislative elections in Libya in 2023, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Libya Abdoulaye Bathily said on Monday
UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th February, 2023) The United Nations is starting an initiative for holding presidential and legislative elections in Libya in 2023, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Libya Abdoulaye Bathily said on Monday.
"I have therefore decided to launch an initiative aimed at enabling the organization and holding of presidential and legislative elections in 2023. In this regard, I plan to establish a High-level Steering Panel for Libya," Bathily said.
The mechanism should bring together all Libyan stakeholders and advance consensus around matters such as the elections, he added.
On February 16, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed the issue of resolving the internal Libyan crisis under the leadership of the United Nations with Bathily and expressed Moscow's support for his work.
Libya has been in turmoil since a NATO invasion helped topple Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. His death led to a decade-long rivalry between the UN-backed administration in Tripoli and the parliament in Tobruk. A UN-brokered reconciliation process put a caretaker unity government in charge in 2021, but it failed to hold elections in December as scheduled.
