The recent resignation of UN Special Representative of the Secretary General in Libya, Abdoulay Bathily, came as he again repeated warnings about the lack of political will and good faith among major players. Signs are that this isn’t changing after his departure.
Bathily made several comments about the need for major parties to work together on an election, which has been repeatedly delayed since December of 2021. He also warned that foreign backers of the various factions have undermined the UN process by engaging in parallel efforts that divert the process.
There have been occasional signs of possible steps forward, including the recent formation of a “new unified government” specifically designed to oversee elections. However, even this meeting was held in Cairo at the behest of the Arab League’s Secretary General, once again pointing to foreign backers controlling the process.
This new government is composed of the president of the Presidential Council Mohamed Menfi, the head of Tripoli’s High State Council Mohamed Takala, and the speaker of the Benghazi parliament Aguila Saleh.
The first two are forever arguing over who exerts more control over the capital city of Tripoli, while the Benghazi parliament’s authority is always questionable, since Gen. Khalifa Hafter retains broad sway over the east and has designs for national dominance.
Bathily had warned Libya faces a risk of disintegration if elections aren’t held, and years of delay seem set to continue, with the new government at most a talking point to provide cover to the next rounds of delay.
Bathily cautioned that people “are frustrated at the status quo,” and faulted security actors who constantly try to carve out areas of advantage in Tripoli.
It is little wonder, then, that Bathily finally decided his warnings weren’t doing much good and just quit outright. Unfortunately, despite expressions of surprise at his departure, things seem set to continue as they have been.
On one side you have Turkey and their ambition and on the other, everyone else.
There are many competing sides with everyone has own ambitions not just Turkey.
The two countries that worked to derail the Arab spring and cause infighting and divisions are the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia fearful of their own population desires. They worked very hard to sabotage any move towards staple democratically governments in Yemen, Libya, and Sudan. They are the ones fueling the ongoing conflicts in Yemen, Sudan and Libya.
“ Along with neighbouring Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia despise democracy so much that they have promised all sorts of support to the military junta in Khartoum in its struggle against Sudan’s pro-democracy movement. The trio already have previous form in meddling relentlessly in Libyan affairs, helping to plunge the country into free fall. Now Sudan’s young, pro-democracy activists suspect that the regimes in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Cairo all played a part in last month’s massacre outside the army headquarters in Khartoum, when more than 100 people were killed and over 500 others were wounded.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190722-the-saudis-and-uae-abandon-yemen-crisis-to-sabotage-sudans-pro-democracy-movement/amp/
“ Watching the events of 2011 with growing alarm, the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the UAE embarked upon a regional counterrevolution. They helped stamp out an uprising in Bahrain, intervened in Yemen’s post-uprising transition and undercut Egypt’s revolution in 2013 by backing the military coup that led to the ascent of Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi as Egypt’s newest president for life. Not only did their intervention in Egypt help overthrow an elected Muslim Brotherhood government supported by regional rivals Qatar and Turkey, but it also ensured the failure of Egypt’s democratic transition. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have showered Egypt’s military regime with billions of dollars of aid in order to secure their desired vision of regional order that places severe limits on political opposition. Although small protests in September 2019 challenged Egypt’s military rule, the “Sisi model” effectively serves as the template that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have sought to impose across the region.
Wealthy, ambitious and emboldened by US acquiescence (which has only increased with the election of President Donald Trump), Saudi Arabia and the UAE have emerged as key protagonists in both thwarting popular movements and in shaping the political and economic policies of regional states in favor of liberalizing economies, hardening authoritarianism and repressing social protest.[1] They have adopted closely aligned foreign policies, often backing the same counterrevolutionary actors while sharing regional ambitions. Although they have important differences regarding the forces they support in their ongoing military intervention in Yemen—with the UAE increasingly supporting southern Yemeni secessionists against the Saudi-backed government—their mutual counterrevolutionary alliance has remained strong elsewhere in the region, as can be seen in those they support in Sudan, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and Tunisia.”
https://merip.org/2019/12/regional-uprisings-confront-gulf-backed-counterrevolution/