Nov 10, 2014

A Nov. 6 court ruling further intensified the already deep political crisis in Libya that has gripped the North African oil-rich nation since August, when a coalition of Islamist militias overran Tripoli. The verdict effectively annulled the country’s elected legislature, the Council of Representatives, the body recognized by the United Nations and the international community since its election in June. Unable to convene in either Tripoli or Benghazi for security reasons, the parliament moved to Tobruk in eastern Libya close to the Egyptian border. More than a dozen Islamist-leaning members boycotted the chamber and chose to challenge its legality.

This means the UN-brokered initiative to bring together parliamentarians and their boycotting colleagues for a compromise is dead. The initiative was launched in September by Bernardino Leon, the UN representative to Libya, with the hope of bringing the two sides together to reach some sort of compromise in which a coalition government could be set up until elections can be held. Hope has faded, and Libya's politics further complicated in the country plagued by factional fighting and well-armed militias that have recognized no central government after NATO-backed rebels toppled the regime of Moammar Gadhafi in October 2011.

The parliament in Tobruk was quick to react, refusing to recognize the ruling. “The ruling was made under the threat of guns,” according to parliament spokesman Farraj Hashem. Indeed, over the last couple of months, the Tobruk-based parliament has asserted that the capital is outside government control. Since taking control of Tripoli, the Islamist Dawn fighters have taken control of all government ministries and institutions, which calls into question the independence of the court itself.

In July, rebels from Misrata backed by Islamist groups formed Libya Dawn to capture Tripoli from pro-government Zintan militias backed by small regular army units. After nearly two months of fighting that brought the destruction of the capital’s airport and the displacement of thousands of civilians, the rebels prevailed and gained control of Tripoli in late August with help from Qatar. They immediately set up a rival government headed by Omar al-Hassi and revived the already dead and discredited General National Congress.

This has led to two governments and two parliaments in a country already divided along tribal and regional lines and suffering from a myriad of regional and international interventions, most of which have been counterproductive. Meanwhile, fierce fighting continues in Benghazi, where well-armed and entrenched Islamists, including the notorious Ansar al-Sharia, are fighting against forces of the Libyan army, which is backed by retired general Khalifa Hifter, who in May launched his own war against the Islamists controlling the city. At the time, Abdullah al-Thini’s government denounced Hifter as yet another militiaman fighting outside the government's control for his own objectives.