Former PM says Libya risks partition if it rushes to elections

CAIRO — Libya is too divided to hold elections and risks partition if it goes ahead with a vote without security guarantees and a national consensus on building a state, a former rebel prime minister said on Tuesday. 

Mahmoud Jibril, who led the National Transitional Council during the uprising that toppled Muammar Qadhafi after more than four decades in power, said a UN-endorsed target of holding national polls by the end of the year was unrealistic.

“The country is still not ready. More unity is needed, more consensus is needed,” Jibril said in an interview from his base in Cairo.

“To go for elections when the country is so divided — we are exposing the country to real partition.”

Jibril, 65, a US-trained consultant, headed an economic reform body under Gaddafi from 2007 before siding with rebels in the 2011 uprising. He served as interim prime minister for about seven months, lobbying successfully for the NATO air campaign that provided the rebels with crucial support.

But he says the electoral success of his National Forces Alliance (NFA) was sabotaged by armed groups who have held the real power in Tripoli since the uprising, storming government buildings and abducting officials to enforce their will. 

In 2012 the NFA won the most votes, though Jibril lost a parliamentary contest to become prime minister. In new elections two years later party lists were banned and the result of the vote was disputed, leading to rival parliaments and governments being set up in Tripoli and the east.

A security vacuum allowed militants and migrant smugglers to flourish, as competing alliances backed by rival regional powers battled for political power and control of Libya’s oil wealth.

Factions based in the east and aligned with Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) have rejected a UN-backed interim government in Tripoli. The LNA is now battling opponents in the far eastern city of Derna.