Russia maintains contacts with all leading political forces in Libya and hopes that the postponement of the general elections in that country, which were supposed to take place last December, will not provoke an escalation of military and political tension, Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister, made this statement to the participants of the 11th Middle East Conference of the Valdai discussion club. The text of the address was read out by Mikhail Bogdanov, Russian President's Special Representative for the Middle East and Africa and Deputy Foreign Minister.
"For our part, we maintain stable and balanced relations with all the leading political forces in the west, east and south of Libya. Both bilaterally and on international platforms, we encourage Libyan politicians to engage in constructive dialogue and seek compromise solutions. We hope that the postponement of the general elections scheduled for December 24, 2021, will not provoke an escalation of military-political tension and not freeze the political process," stated the statement of the Russian MFA.
According to him, the main achievement is that there have been no active military operations in Libya for more than a year. During this time important positive changes have occurred in the country, its people with active international support "are gradually overcoming distrust accumulated during the years of unrest, they learn to negotiate and find compromises". In 2021 unified authorities were also formed for a transitional period, "the unification of state structures, financial and economic institutions started".
On December 22 last year, the High Electoral Commission of Libya officially announced the postponement of elections in the country.
In April last year, the Libyan authorities were forced to admit that they would not have time to prepare and hold a referendum on the constitution before the parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for December 24, which initially made the vote illegitimate. Under the circumstances, the parliament hurriedly drafted and adopted laws on presidential and legislative elections, which ultimately contained numerous omissions. As a result, the head of the country's High Electoral Commission, Imad al-Sayeh, later stated that numerous legal obstacles, including inadequate legislation, prevented the elections from taking place.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Creative Commons
Based on materials from TASS