Here’s a name that has not yet hit the
world’s headlines – Abdul Hamid Dbeibah.
He is Libya’s interim prime minister-designate, selected on February 5 in
a United Nations-sponsored inter-Libyan dialogue, the latest internationally
backed bid to salvage the country from a decade of conflict and economic chaos.
The media’s apparent
lack of interest in Dbeibah is about to be remedied. On March 15 a UN report is due to be
published, the outcome of an investigation into whether Dbeibah gained power as
a result of his supporters offering bribes as high as $200,000 to attract
votes. Following Dbeibah’s selection,
the acting UN envoy for Libya, Stephanie Williams, demanded the investigation.
The UN-appointed
75-strong political dialogue forum met in a Tunis hotel to elect an interim
prime minister capable of reforming Libya’s chaotic economic and political
situation, and preparing the nation for parliamentary elections in December.
The yet-to-be-published inquiry report, the media has discovered, describes how
a row broke out in the hotel lobby when some delegates were outraged to discover
that the bribe for their vote was lower than that being offered in secret to
others. One delegate heard that as much as $500,000 was on offer.
Dbeibah’s office has
described the story as fake news designed to disrupt the political process. If so, it has succeeded in throwing the
legitimacy of his appointment into doubt. What will follow the publication of
the UN report is a matter for speculation, but under the original plan the interim
prime minister had until March 19 to win approval for a cabinet. If approved, the cabinet would replace both Libya’s
legitimate Government of National Accord (GNA), and the illegitimate parallel
administration run by strong man Khalifa Haftar, who has been leading his
Libyan National Army (LNA) in an attempt to overthrow the GNA and assume the
leadership of the country. An interim
three-member presidency council – selected alongside Dbeibah – is intended to
head the unity administration.
Dbeibah would then be
charged with bringing order into the chaos that currently afflicts Libya – the dire
economic crisis, soaring unemployment, dysfunctional public services and
crippling inflation – in time for the elections scheduled for December 24.
Following the overthrow
of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya became a hotbed of Islamist
groups battling each other. It was in
2015, under a UN-led initiative, that the Government of National Accord was
established, endorsed unanimously by the UN Security Council as the sole
legitimate executive authority in Libya. In the event it proved totally ineffective in
getting a grip on the situation. On the
contrary, it allowed the mayhem to spiral out of control.
In the fall of 2019 Khalifa Haftar, once Gaddafi’s friend, began trying to overthrow the GNA and set himself up as Libya’s leader. By the spring of 2020 he seemed on the brink of succeeding. He was apparently within days of capturing the capital, Tripoli. That never happened – and now it seems an unlikely possibility.
For a long time an
impressive list of national governments believed that Haftar was the one
politico-military figure in today’s Libya able to regain mastery of the
situation and bring an end to the state of anarchy. Opinion shifted with the setting up of the
UN-sponsored peace forum, which seemed to offer a better way forward for Libya –
until the rumors of bribery and corruption surfaced. Now, the future is uncertain indeed.
In the first week of
March 2021 a UN observer mission flew an advance team into the Libyan capital,
Tripoli, tasked with monitoring a ceasefire between the country’s rival armed
factions. According to the UN, Libya is currently host to some 20,000
mercenaries and foreign fighters. Some of
them are highly trained Russian fighters embedded in Haftar’s LNA; others are
forces under Turkey’s command. Media
rumors have claimed that when an armed clash between the two sets of Russian
mercenaries seemed likely, Ankara and Moscow came to a deal and Haftar’s Russian
force simply melted away. This, it is alleged, is another reason for the series
of defeats suffered by Haftar at the hands of the GNA.
What is known of Abdul
Hamid Dbeibah, at present Libya’s new interim prime minister? Born in 1959 in the north-western Libyan city
of Misrata, Dbeibah moved to Canada early in his career to take a graduate
degree in engineering at the University of Toronto. He moved back to his native city in the midst
of a construction boom and involved himself in the construction industry. His business success and engineering expertise
were noted by Gaddafi’s close associates. In 2007 Gaddafi appointed him to run the
state-owned Libyan Investment and Development Company (LIDCO), responsible for
some of the country’s biggest public works projects, including the construction
of 1,000 housing units in the leader’s hometown of Sirte.
Wolfgang Pusztai,
Austria’s former defense attaché to Libya, has said that Dbeibah’s past may
undermine his credibility.
“The Dbeibah candidacy
is still under debate,” said Pusztai in a press interview. “He was the head of
the Libyan investment and development holding company under Gaddafi, and he was
allegedly involved in corruption, money laundering, financing of the Muslim
Brotherhood, vote buying and so on.”
Vote buying is the charge currently hanging over his head. His political future is in the balance.
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/03/12/can-libyas-prime-minister-survive-the-scandal/
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