JEDDAH: Libya’s reunited parliament voted on Wednesday to approve an interim government after a decade of chaos and violence, to oversee elections in December as part of a UN-backed peace plan.
The parliament’s approval of Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh’s Cabinet by 132 votes to 2, at a session in the frontline city of Sirte, is the biggest opportunity in years for a resolution to Libya’s conflict.
“Through this vote, it became clear that the Libyans are one unit,” Dbeibeh told parliament.
Tarek Megerisi of the European Council on Foreign Relations said: “If we come out of this with one government and one set of institutions then we’re already in a far superior place than we’ve been for the past five years.”
It was parliament’s first full session in years after it split between eastern and western factions in 2014, three years after an uprising toppled Muammar Qaddafi and plunged Libya into chaos.
A cease-fire has held since the autumn, but the main road across the front lines from Sirte to Misrata remains closed and parliament members from the west had to fly in from Tripoli.
Critics of the UN peace plan say it has merely rearranged the tangle of alliances and enmities among power brokers who have dominated Libya for years, without disrupting their ability to loot its wealth or wreck political agreements they dislike.
Nevertheless, Libya is on the cusp of a first unified government in years and with all sides formally committed to elections. In a visible sign of returning normality, the first civilian airline flight in six years traveled on Tuesday between Benghazi and Misrata.
“It is good for us to have one government ... but it is more important for the government to abide by the agreement and bring the country to elections,” said Khaled Al-Ajili, 42, a businessman in a Tripoli cafe.