Libyan PM Abdul Hamid Dbeibah suggested starting preparations for the elections in June and holding parliamentary polls at the end of 2022.
“After the parliamentary elections are held and the new government is formed, I will not stay in office even for a minute,” said Dbeibah in a speech posted Wednesday on social media.
Dbeibah noted that he spoke to officials of the Supreme Election Commission about the elections and that if the commission does not stand by the people, they should look for alternative solutions.
Saying he expected reactions from different circles against him and his government after the announcement of the election calendar, Dbeibah said “the United Nations and Stephanie Williams should hear the voice of the people,” referring to the U.N. secretary-general’s special adviser on Libya.
“No solution will be found without the wishes of the Libyans,” he added.
For more than two months, there have been two governments in Libya: the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity led by Dbeibah and the one granted confidence in early March by the Tobruk-based House of Representatives.
Dbeibah has previously said that he would only cede authority to a government that comes through an “elected parliament,” raising fears that the oil-rich country could slip back into a civil war.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently called on all sides to set a new date for elections in Libya.
“A clear, consensual path to elections is, now more than ever, a political necessity,” Guterres told the U.N. Security Council in a report obtained by Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).
Libyans are waiting for the stalled elections to take place in the hope that the vote will contribute to ending years of armed conflict that have plagued the oil-rich country.
Libya plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed 2011 uprising toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. For years, it has been split between rival administrations in the east and the west, each supported by an array of militias and foreign governments.