Russia calls for restraint in Libya ahead of general election — diplomat

UNITED NATIONS, November 24. /TASS/. Russia is calling upon all sides of the conflict in Libya to show maximum restraint so that the people of Libya could execute their legitimate right to elect and be elected, Russian Deputy Envoy to the UN Gennady Kuzmin said.
The Libyan statehood was razed down to the ground for the sake of Western states’ ambitions, he told a UN Security Council meeting on the issue on Tuesday.
“The country that once used to prosper still lies in ruins, and needs to be restored bit by bit,” he said. “As for the civilian population, whom the good-doers from NATO tried to protect, it had to pass through the terrors of civil all-out war, utter chaos, total disarrangement and devastation.”
The diplomat noted that a decade passed before Libya “could spot some positive moments in its complicated process of political settlement.”
“Libya’s general elections are scheduled for 24 December. We call on all sides to demonstrate maximum restraint in order to make it possible for the long-suffering Libyan people to execute their legitimate right to elect and be elected,” Kuzmin said.
On November 22, Libya’s election commission stopped receiving registration bids from candidates in the upcoming presidential election. The vote is to take place on December 24, and will coincide with legislative polls.
Libya has for several years had two parallel bodies of executive power: the Fayez Sarraj-led Government of National Accord in Tripoli and the provisional Cabinet of Ministers in the east, enjoying support from parliament and the Libyan National Army. In April 2019, Haftar launched an offensive towards the country’s main city. In response, the Cabinet of Ministers mobilized all forces under its control and addressed Turkey with an official request for help on the basis of the military cooperation memorandum. After that, with Ankara’s active support, he managed to regain control of a number of provinces the LNA had taken.
In February this year, the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum in Switzerland elected a new prime minister of the Government of National Unity and three members of the Presidential Council. Both bodies of power were sworn in on March 15 and started performing their duties in Tripoli with the aim of consolidating fragmented bodies of power across the nation and also preparing for and holding presidential and parliamentary elections on December 24.