TRIPOLI: Libya is set to hold rare municipal elections on Saturday, in a ballot seen as a test of democracy in a nation still plagued by division and instability.
Key eastern cities — including Benghazi, Sirte and Tobruk — have rejected the vote, highlighting the deep rifts between rival administrations.
The UN mission in Libya, UNSMIL, called the elections “essential to uphold democratic governance” while warning that recent attacks on electoral offices and ongoing insecurity could undermine the process.
“Libyans need to vote and to have the freedom to choose without fear and without being pressured by anyone,” said Esraa Abdelmonem, a 36-year-old mother of three.
“These elections would allow people to have their say in their day-to-day affairs,” she said, adding that it was “interesting to see” how the areas affected by the clashes in May would vote.
Since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi, Libya has remained split between Tripoli’s UN-recognized government, led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah and its eastern rival administration backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
Khaled Al-Montasser, a Tripoli-based international relations professor, called the vote “decisive,” framing it as a test for whether Libya’s factions are ready to accept representatives chosen at the ballot box.
“The elections make it possible to judge whether the eastern and western authorities are truly ready to accept the idea that local representatives are appointed by the vote rather than imposed by intimidation or arms,” he said.
Nearly 380,000 Libyans, mostly from western municipalities, are expected to vote.
Elections had originally been planned in 63 municipalities nationwide — 41 in the west, 13 in the east, and nine in the south — but the High National Elections Commission (HNEC) suspended 11 constituencies in the east and south due to irregularities, administrative issues and pressure from local authorities.
In some areas near Tripoli, voting was also postponed due to problems distributing voter cards.
And on Tuesday, the electoral body said a group of armed men attacked its headquarters in Zliten, some 160 kilometers east of Tripoli.
No casualty figures were given, although UNSMIL said there were some injuries.
UNSMIL said the attack sought to “intimidate voters, candidates and electoral staff, and to prevent them from exercising their political rights to participate in the elections and the democratic process.”
National elections scheduled for December 2021 were postponed indefinitely due to disputes between the two rival powers.
Following Qaddafi’s death and 42 years of autocratic rule, Libya held its first free vote in 2012 to elect 200 parliament members at the General National Congress.
That was followed by the first municipal elections in 2013, and legislative elections in 2014 that saw a low turnout amid renewed violence.
In August that year, a coalition of militias seized Tripoli and installed a government with the backing of Misrata — then a politically influential city some 200 kilometers east of Tripoli — forcing the newly elected GNC parliament to relocate to the east.
The UN then brokered an agreement in December 2015 that saw the creation of the Government of National Accord, in Tripoli, with Fayez Al-Sarraj as its first premier, but divisions in the country have persisted still.
Other municipal elections did take place between 2019 and 2021, but only in a handful of cities.
Libya to hold rare local vote in test for divided nation
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Libya to hold rare local vote in test for divided nation
- Rare municipal elections are seen as a test of democracy in a nation still plagued by division and instability
- Key eastern cities — including Benghazi, Sirte and Tobruk — have rejected the vote, highlighting the deep rifts between rival administrations
Israel agrees to reopen Rafah crossing only for Gaza pedestrians
- The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israel said Monday it would only allow pedestrians to travel through the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt as part of its “limited reopening” once it has recovered the remains of the last hostage in the Palestinian territory.
Reopening Rafah, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza, forms part of a truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump in October, but the crossing has remained closed since Israeli forces took control of it during the war in the Palestinian territory.
Visiting US envoys had reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing during talks in Jerusalem over the weekend.
World leaders and aid agencies have repeatedly pushed for more humanitarian convoys to be able to access Gaza, which has been left devastated by more than two years of war and depends on the inflow of essential medical equipment, food and other supplies.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Monday that Israel had agreed to a reopening “for pedestrian passage only, subject to a full Israeli inspection mechanism.”
The move would depend on “the return of all living hostages and a 100 percent effort by Hamas to locate and return all deceased hostages,” it said on X.
It remained unclear whether the reopening would allow medical patients to leave Gaza for treatment in Egypt or other countries.
The Israeli military said it was searching a cemetery in the Gaza Strip on Sunday for the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili.
“Upon completion of this operation, and in accordance with what has been agreed upon with the US, Israel will open the Rafah Crossing,” said Netanyahu’s office.
The announcement came after Gaza’s newly appointed administrator, Ali Shaath, said the crossing would open “in both directions” this week.
“For Palestinians in Gaza, Rafah is more than a gate, it is a lifeline and a symbol of opportunity,” Shaath said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.
Israeli media had also reported that US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had urged Netanyahu to reopen Rafah during their Jerusalem talks.
Before the war erupted in October 2023, Rafah had been the only gateway connecting Gazans to the outside world and enabling international humanitarian aid to enter the territory, home to 2.2 million people living under Israeli blockade.
Last hostage
A spokesman for Hamas’s Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, said on Sunday that the group had “provided mediators with all the details and information in our possession regarding the location of the captive’s body,” referring to Gvili.
Obeida added that “the enemy (Israel) is currently searching one of the sites based on information transmitted by the Al-Qassam Brigades.”
Except for Gvili, all of the 251 people taken hostage during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel have since been returned, whether living or dead.
A non-commissioned officer in the Israeli police’s elite Yassam unit, Gvili was killed in action on the day of the attack and his body was taken to Gaza.
The first phase of the US-backed ceasefire deal had stipulated that Hamas hand over all the hostages in Gaza.
Gvili’s family has expressed strong opposition to launching the second phase of the plan, which includes reopening Rafah, before they have received his remains.
“First and foremost, Ran must be brought home,” his family said in a statement on Sunday.
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
The Israeli retaliation flattened much of Gaza, a territory that was already suffering severely from previous rounds of fighting and from an Israeli blockade imposed since 2007.
The two-year war between Israel and Hamas has left at least 71,657 people dead in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry, figures considered reliable by the United Nations.
