Despite the repeated emphasis placed on the necessity of a democratic solution to Libya’s post-2011 instability in the rhetoric of local, regional, and international actors, Libya continues to be mired in a political impasse of endless – and routinely bloody – ‘transition’.

The fragile UN-brokered ceasefire of October 2020 which followed the eastern strongman General Khalifa Haftar’s unsuccessful efforts to seize the capital, Tripoli, from the then UN-recognised Government of National Accord headed at that time by Fayez al-Sarraj, has since been shaken by renewed bouts of violence.

The indefinitely postponed elections of December 2021 furthered the disintegration of the authority of the new Government of National Unity which had been established under UN auspices in February of that year. Rival claims to interim legitimacy continue to be advanced by Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, the prime minister originally appointed by the UN-sponsored Libya Political Dialogue Forum who refused to step down in the absence of a freshly elected administration to which to cede power, and his fellow Misratan Fathi Bashagha, declared prime minister in February 2022 by the eastern-based House of Representatives and supported by General Haftar.

Three attempts by Bashagha to enter Tripoli to topple Dbeibah’s government by military means have been repeatedly stalled by pro-Dbeibah militias in the capital, lapsing into uneasy ceasefire, though they have opened up marked divisions in the north-west of the country.

Calls for an electoral roadmap have been echoed throughout the political elite, such as in an agreement in Rabat in October 2022 between Bashagha’s ally, Aguila Saleh, speaker of the House of Representatives, and Khaled al-Mishri, Chairman of the High Council of State who is based in Tripoli though is hostile to Dbeibah’s administration. Though Dbeibah dismissed these negotiations as ‘parallel paths’, he himself reiterated calls for constitutional agreement and elections.

Similar rhetoric in favour of elections is frequently deployed by external state actors, such as Egypt, Turkey, the US, UK, France, Italy, and Germany, mirroring statements by the United Nations Security Council, and the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).

Furthermore, elections and a renewal of the political class were repeated demands during the protests that took place throughout Libya this summer.

Yet there is still no substantial progress towards elections, and any prospect of it any time soon appears slim.

The major stumbling blocks

Principal among the numerous factors thwarting agreement on an electoral framework is the sheer weight of vested interest in the maintenance of the status quo, or at least something approximating to it.

True, by no means all Libyan political players are content with the current extent of their influence, as Bashagha’s military forays (and attempts to lobby the British government for recognition with the assistance of Mark Fullbrook, later an aid to UK Prime Minister Liz Truss) have amply proven. However, local political actors often have a dual interest in stalling substantive electoral discussions.

Firstly, as Stephanie Williams, the former Special Adviser on Libya to the UN Secretary-General, points out in her candid analysis of Libyan politics following her departure from the role in July, this inertia stems in part from a fundamental fear that free and fair elections would result in the removal of many existing elites from their current positions. This is particularly so in the context of significant popular frustration at corruption, political deadlock, and infrastructural weakness to which the summer’s protests were testament.

Secondly, electoral management and the constitutional architecture of a new, unified state are entwined with debates over how formal political power, economic resources, and consequent informal powers of patronage are to be divided amongst existing interest groups, who both wish to increase their leverage and fear being shut out.

In a rentier state structure in which approximately 80% of the working population draw their salaries from the state, and as long as oil sales remain the economy’s dominant revenue stream, the division of economic spoils is inherently a core part of what politics is about, but lack of electoral accountability and co-ordinated state regulation greatly exacerbate inequality of distribution through fostering corruption, undermining the establishment of vital economic infrastructure that could guarantee higher overall living standards.

Any constitutional agreement is faced with a twin tension: how much to accommodate stakeholders’ interests within a stable democratic system that would be palatable to numerous actors, and, if this were achieved, how much this would actually enfranchise Libyan voters outside the ranks of existing elites.

Debates over decentralisation, and its extent, present related issues for constitutional agreement.

Whilst there is widespread criticism of the existing model of over-centralised state power and resource control from Tripoli, and particularly the underdevelopment of the southern Fezzan region, this must be counterbalanced with awareness of the dangers of further enshrining existing local interest groups and patronage networks, via decentralized state structures.

Williams however is more optimistic on this score, viewing the constitutional discussions in Cairo in June as having made substantial improvements to the 2017 constitutional draft through the proposition of 13 elected provincial administrations to supplement elected municipal administrations, in addition to a scheme for sharing political responsibility and control over resources at different levels.

Whilst having more elected officials at lower levels by no means eliminates the possibility for corruption, it does arguably provide another means for establishing scrutiny and accountability to those they serve.

The extent of executive power in a future constitutional framework is also a key issue, especially in the context of the potential inclusion of controversial candidates for presidential office.

Fears over the potential abuse of this power are significant, and Williams sounds a note of caution about the concentration of executive power in the presidency for which the 2017 constitutional draft allows, suggesting a three-person presidential council representing Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan as a temporary or permanent solution.

Such a scheme does carry certain risks, whether candidates were to band together in slates – which, though it might encourage alliance-building, could shut out oppositional voices completely and fail to constrain adequately the concentration of executive power – or whether the three council members were rivals whose lack of sufficient co-operation stoked intra-regional tensions.

It nevertheless draws attention to the fact that this area is potentially in need of more substantial revision, particularly regarding what the responsibilities of the president would be and what constitutional constraints could be built in.

Accountability for war crimes and human rights abuses committed since and prior to the 2011 revolution, and their impact on eligibility for political participation, continue to be vexed issues, as they were before the aborted elections of December 2021.

A report by the UN Fact-Finding Mission in October 2021 found widespread evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity since 2016, and issues of prosecution, compensation, or potential amnesties, and of co-ordinating the approaches of different international and national jurisdictions all pose major challenges in the context of continued instability.

Controversy over eligibility is most pronounced over potential presidential candidates, including Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Muammar Gaddafi, against whom the International Criminal Court is pursuing charges, and General Haftar, who was found liable for war crimes in absentia by a US court in Virginia in July 2022, who both presented their candidature in 2021. However, it could extend to many more individuals, some affiliated with the former Gaddafi government, but potentially others too, many of whom may be embedded within the political elite.

This inherently blurs the boundaries between ‘law’ and ‘politics’, both through the issue of more explicitly politically motivated prosecutions but also through the necessarily ‘political’ issue of determining what accountability, justice, and reconciliation should mean in this context.

Furthermore, the timing of such processes is complicated, as their implementation prior to elections (in order to determine eligibility) would further put off the latter, though implementing them after elections could create further quandaries of legitimacy over removing now-elected officials.

In a direct demonstration of how matters of constitutional principle have a very immediate bearing on the political future of current actors, the eligibility of dual nationals has become a flashpoint issue due to General Haftar’s possession of US citizenship.

The number of weapons as well as foreign-linked mercenary forces present in Libya also creates fundamental issues of security for any elections and their aftermath, and the tribal dimension of political divisions and allegiances can be a further factor that can hamper co-operation and contribute to violence, such as in the expulsion of inhabitants from Tawergha in 2011.

International entanglements

The involvement of international actors with mutually conflicting agendas and interests continues to be a major stumbling block to finding agreement on an electoral roadmap between different Libyan factions.

The interlocking nature of Libyan internal politics and wider Eastern Mediterranean energy disputes, post-2011 geopolitical tensions, and the hybrid conflict between Russia and the West poses particular challenges.

Countries such as Turkey, Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Algeria, Russia, the US, France, Italy, the UK, Greece all have stakes of varying significance in Libyan politics, and are concerned to see their various interests and priorities guaranteed in any political settlement that might significantly change the situation on the ground.

Whilst there have been signs of some rapprochement between Dbeibah and General Haftar, between the UAE and Dbeibah’s administration, and between Turkey and the eastern alliance of Saleh and Bashagha, this does not necessarily presage a significant change to the status quo via a new impetus for long-term constitutional solutions.

In some respects, it reflects a willingness to further interests in collaboration with different sides in a way that is not necessarily conditional on finding immediate constitutional agreement, as demonstrated by the UAE’s balancing act in seeking to cultivate economic relations with the GNU, and perhaps also by the Italian oil supermajor Eni’s discussions with the Libyan National Oil Corporation over restarting oil prospecting and the French multinational TotalEnergies’ newly acquired share in the Waha Concessions.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has acknowledged that bilateral memoranda with the GNU cannot be seen as official international agreements on economic co-operation, and Turkish interests in furthering economic relations with Libya do ultimately require a stable government that has access to sufficient revenue streams for major infrastructure investment.

However, this seeming attempt to gain greater leverage over different factions through opening up dialogue with Saleh and Bashagha whilst also signing memoranda of understanding with Dbeibah’s GNU on defence and hydrocarbon exploration suggests a subordination of constitutional agreement between opposing Libyan actors to external strategic interests in a way that – certainly in the short term – does not favour agreement, particularly if Turkish Bayraktar drones are supplied to the GNU.

Much more directly, Russia potentially has a direct interest in exacerbating instability in Libya to jeopardise oil supplies, increase prices, and target western interests in the context of its multi-dimensional hostilities with NATO following the war in Ukraine.

Potential ways forward

Significant change in Libya is arguably reliant to a large extent – though not exclusively – on major change in the engagement of external state actors in the conflict. Several commentators, including Williams, and activists have called for more active US involvement, on the diplomatic front, potentially via US assistance in co-ordinating Libyan financial rebuilding schemes, or particularly via Magnitsky-style sanctions on the assets and travel of some individuals within the Libyan political elite, particularly those accused of significant corruption, in order to put more pressure on Libyan political actors invested in the maintenance status quo.

Nevertheless, careful consideration would have to be given to the targets of such sanctions, on what evidence punitive measures would be based, how widely they would target political actors of different factions as a coercive incentive to serious negotiations, and potentially coupling it with more positive, transparent incentives to co-operation to avoid the risk of significant alienation and appeals for greater, counter-active support from other external powers.

Furthermore, increased US engagement may be reliant on broader shifts in its foreign policy in the MENA region, which may involve providing certain quid pro quos to regional states with interests in Libya, and so is not purely a matter of political will (or lack thereof).

Moreover, changes in regional geopolitical constellations and at least partial reduction of tensions over energy resources in the Eastern Mediterranean are arguably required prior to, or as part of, finding a more stable, constitutionally-based framework for Libya. The tentative Turkey-Egypt rapprochement is significant, as are those between Turkey and the UAE and Saudi Arabia within the context of the ‘great reset’, though disagreement over Libya has thwarted recent Egypt-Turkey discussions.

With no détente between Russia and the West on the horizon any time soon, diplomatic efforts arguably need to contain any destabilizing impact on Libya, though the appointment of Abdoulaye Bathily as UN Special Representative and the one-year prolongation of UNSMIL’s mandate is a positive step.

Demands ‘from below’ by Libyan citizens, such as in the summer protests, may put further pressure on the rival administrations, focusing attention on those outside the existing political elites, and especially the most marginalised, such as migrants, who suffer most from the current political situation. But amongst numerous actors, the mood is one of considerable, continued frustration.