Libya's Latest Moment of Courage?

On September 12th,  Twitter  lit with news that at a long-awaited U.N. brokered deal for a Libyan Government of National Unity had been reached.  Yesterday, an agreement had been downgraded to a consensus.  Two days later, a deal seems about as shaky as ever - and for good reason.   The fourth draft of the National Unity Plan was initialed in July, based on the provisions in place then.  But the upstart General National Congress (GNC),  which effectively controls the Western part of the country, insisted on a series of amendments to the deal -- and the custodians of this process have caved.  It remains to be seen if Libya's current official government, the House of Representatives (HoR), will agree, and a unity government will coalesce by the U.N.  target date of September 20.  Current bets seem to be against it.

The most divisive of the GNC demands are two.  The first, that the proposed 120-member State Council be composed entirely of sitting members of the GNC (the previous plan held for participation by members of the HoR).  The second, that the Libyan military and security forces be built by the Unity Government, thereby sidelining the GNC's chief nemesis, Libyan National Army commander General Khalifa Heftar (who regrettably styles himself a "Libyan Sisi", but takes strength from the GNC's over-reach).  In all of this, the GNC  is clearly betting it can ride international panic about ISIS and the tragedy-filled traffic in African refugees, to control of a new government -  despite the fact that the legal bases for its claim to political legitimacy are specious.  Thus far, no one has proposed a plausible scenario for disarming the myriad militias, who control the streets.  Without popular consensus this will be a difficult, if not impossible task.

If the HoR accepts the amendments in full, the deal will almost inevitably be seen by the Libyan public as an imposed solution, at service to outside agendas.   A very real concern is that the U.N. is, de facto, handing control of the country to an upstart Islamist coalition, which has been defeated twice at the polls in 2012, and 2014, and has very problematic links to radical elements the international coalitions purport to wish to fight.

Fully aware of the shakiness of the current situation, all sides are visibly hedging their bets:  General Heftar has convened his deputies regarding a possible announcement of a military government in October, when the current HoR term ends.  In territory controlled by the HoR, efforts to create a parallel National Oil Company and Central Bank continue.  Competing claimants to leadership of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), aligned with either HoR or GNC, continue to push their legal cases.   Partisans of a federalist solution are waiting for their opening, as are ethnic groups like the Tuareg and Tubu, who were largely excluded from the current negotiation process.

If the current talks collapse, there will be inevitably be hand wringing that Libyans gave up on their 'last chance'.  But a check on the current process may be seen more positively as a sign of belated political maturity, that will either bring the Unity Government discussions back into reality, or shift attention to other options, some of which may involve a national separation, or divorce, rather than consensus.