US-France agreement on Libya: tactical or strategic?
The agreement between the United States and France on Libya could be a compensatory tactic with which Washington tries to recompose with the Elysée after the issue of submarines in Australia. Francesco Semprini's analysis for International Affairs
The shortlist of candidates for the presidential elections in Libya is as rich as the regulatory framework on which the expected appointment with the polls rests is weak. The most recent of the 17 nominations reported for the presidential round (which will be joined by the parliamentary round) scheduled for December 24 is from former Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha, who arrived exactly 24 hours after those of Khalifa Haftar, Ahmed Maetig and Aguila Saleh.
However, it was the descent into the field of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, second son of the Rais, that set the country on fire, exposing the many critical issues that undermine the path to the vote. Saif reappeared about a decade after his arrest (and the fall of his father Muammar's regime) in a registration center in southern Libya – in the capital of Fezzan, Sebha – where he feels safe and out of the feud between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. . His return to the scene is the result of an accurate direction and his path, although studded with pitfalls, is not a foregone conclusion. Tried for the killings of civilians during the 2011 uprising, the International Criminal Court of The Hague issued an arrest warrant for crimes against humanity.
However, no Libyan faction has ever wanted to hand him over. After his sentence and five years in prison, he was released in 2017 and has since kept a low profile to fuel rumors of a presumed death. Until the interview with the New York Times last summer, after which he set the electoral machine in motion.
Uncertain climate, incomplete rules
Saif's descent into the field must be carefully evaluated, not only because it fits into an uncertain electoral climate, but because it is itself capable of changing the balance on the field. First of all because it is a divisive character (and a surname), as demonstrated by the hot reactions, especially of the Islamist formations, the revolutionaries, Misrata and the Muslim Brotherhood. At the same time, however, it must be said that the colonel's scion enjoys support in Cyrenaica and Fezzan and in some enclaves of the west. The second aspect is that Saif's descent into the field is the daughter of an electoral law desired at all costs by the President of the Parliament of Tobruk Aguila Saleh (also due to the immobility of the UN) inequitable and incomplete.
In the first place, this law overturns the simultaneity of the presidential and parliamentary votes provided for by UN resolution 2570, exposing the electoral process to an ongoing derailment. It is widely believed that the regulatory framework is tailor-made for Haftar or to blow the bank and allow, in the case, the Tobruk Parliament to survive, making the rift between East and West remain. A scenario that does not displease Russia and Turkey, key shareholders of the Libyan chessboard who aim to maintain the status quo. Thus Ankara can use the west as a platform of control of the southern shore of the Mediterranean, and Moscow with Wagner's mercenaries, continue the penetration towards the south of Libya and the Sahel.
Secondly, the law creates confusion, for example, in defining the criteria for admitting candidates, as in the case of the young Gaddafi. The law says that in order not to be admitted there must be a definitive sentence, while for the majority of jurists that of Saif is not. Another aspect that shows the fragility of the conditions of the vote of 24 December expressed as supported by some European countries in Paris, starting with Italy, according to which the vote is necessary, but in order to be useful and shared it must take place in acceptable conditions by intervening on the law electoral. And that marks the difference with respect to France and Egypt (sponsors of Cyrenaica) supporters of the vote regardless, perhaps driven by the belief that they can collect the result that was missed with the war.
The agreement between the USA and France
The point is that we need to act immediately by putting the law back, because the Libyans have a great desire to vote (for the president more than for the parliament) and in the event of a postponement, dangerous discontent could be created. Finally, it must be said that the nostalgic Gaddafi have both a strong understanding with the current premier Abdul Hamid Dbeiba, but are also, especially the hard and pure, with the heir of the Rais, and most consider Haftar a traitor. The descent into the field therefore does not help the general and, since Dbeiba is excluded from the race according to article 12 of the electoral law, Gaddafi could win. But it is good to remember that the sentence of the International Criminal Court remains on him, so his success would replicate the Sudanese case of Omar al-Bashir.
Joe Biden's United States, meanwhile, align themselves with the French, convinced that democracy will triumph in the end and that it is necessary to go to the polls anyway. The agreement between Washington and Paris could, however, be a compensatory tactic with which Washington tries to recompose with the Elysée after the rudeness of submarines in Australia. At the United Nations, on the other hand, there is a geostrategic concern, which arises from the placement of the Libyan events in the continental mosaic. In Guinea there was a coup, just as in Sudan, in Tunisia the president suspended the Parliament, and Mali is increasingly destabilized, not to mention the tensions between Algeria and Morocco and the spread of Isis increasingly towards the low.
And now Libya, which risks being held hostage by a halt vote which in the worst case scenario could generate new institutional divisions, harbingers of new military tensions.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/intesa-libia-francia-stati-uniti/ on Sun, 21 Nov 2021 07:48:21 +0000.