The leader of a new Libyan government has vowed to relocate from the country’s east to Tripoli within “days” to replace a rival administration, despite concerns that such a move risks stoking a fresh bout of fighting in the oil-rich north African state.
Fathi Bashagha’s government was approved by the Libyan parliament this month, establishing a rival to an interim administration in Tripoli that failed to hold December elections. He told the Financial Times this week that he planned to move to the capital in the most “peaceful way possible”, insisting that his government would not be involved in “any violence or conflict”.
“We will be arriving in Tripoli in the next few days and there will not be another parallel government,” Bashagha said in a telephone interview from Tobruk, where the House of Representatives is based. “The reason why we have not entered Tripoli just yet is to avoid what you have pointed out [the risk of conflict].”
The Bashagha-led government, which is backed by Khalifa Haftar, the renegade military officer who controls eastern Libya, is seeking to replace the interim administration based in Tripoli led by Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh. Both have the backing of armed factions and a stand-off between them risks triggering the bitter factional divisions that have blighted the country since disputed 2014 elections. Bashagha said he had reached out to forces on the ground and the political elite to avoid confrontation. Analysts said any move on Tripoli would raise the stakes in the political stand-off.