Libya Political Dialogue: Delegates Gather In Geneva To Pick New Prime Minister

Libyan Political Dialogue Forum’s convention has kicked off in Geneva with the UN Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General Stephanie Williams in attendance.

The meeting, expected to last until February 5, is supposed to vote on the positions of a three-member Presidency Council and the Prime Minister of Libya, in accordance with the roadmap adopted by the Forum in Tunis in mid-November.

Twenty-one candidates have been nominated to be prime minister, and 24 to sit on the presidency council.

Tension has been high since Sunday in Tripoli, where militias loyal to Fayez el-Sarraj have once again rejected the political process initiated by the UN. Hundreds of military vehicles filled with armed men from several locations in Western Libya convened in the capital.

There are doubts whether those picked by the UN-selected Libyan Political Dialogue Forum will be accepted by rival regimes in the east and west of the country.

Libya has been mired in violence since the 2011 fall of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a NATO-backed uprising, with an array of armed groups and two administrations vying for power.