TRIPOLI, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- Aguila Saleh, speaker of the Libyan eastern-based House of Representatives, has described the idea of forming a new unified government to oversee elections "unrealistic," and proposed instead the formation of a seven-member committee to undertake this task, local media reported late Monday.
In an interview with Libyan television channel Al-Masar TV on Monday, Saleh said that making a unified government a prerequisite for elections was impractical given Libya's current political divisions. He argued that a specialized committee could directly manage and implement the elections.
Since the fall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya has been split between two rival governments -- the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity led by Abdul Hamid Dbeibah and the eastern-based administration appointed by the House of Representatives and headed by Osama Hammad.
Saleh proposed a committee that includes the head of the Supreme Judicial Council to oversee judicial supervision, the governor of the Central Bank to independently manage election funding, senior Interior Ministry officials from both eastern and western Libya to ensure security, representatives from the UN-backed 5+5 Joint Military Commission, and the chairman of the National High Electoral Commission (HNEC).
This proposal comes at a time when disagreements have resurfaced between Saleh and Mohamed Takala, the head of the High Council of State, following the council's election on Monday of Salah Al-Kamishi as head of the HNEC.
Yet the decision was strongly rejected by the House of Representatives. Saleh said there was no justification for replacing current commission chairman Emad al-Sayeh, stressing that the commission's leadership has demonstrated sufficient competence.
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) warned on Tuesday of the escalating tensions between the House of Representatives and the High Council of State regarding the reformation of the HNEC board, one of the foundational steps in the political roadmap.
The mission renewed its call for both councils to halt all unilateral actions and held them responsible for any division that may affect the commission's operations in the future. ■