LibyaPolitics

Al-Sarraj resorts to a cabinet reshuffle and warns of implementing “emergency law”

The Head of the Presidential Council, Fayez Al-Sarraj, announced his intention to conduct an urgent cabinet reshuffle, and hinted at resorting to the emergency law and forming a “crisis government.”

In his speech to Libyans, Al-Sarraj said, in the wake of angry protests in Tripoli and other cities calling for an improvement in living conditions, that the peaceful expression of opinion is a fundamental right of the people and one of the characteristics of the civil state, adding that it is the duty of the Presidential Council and the Government of National Accord to respond to the people’s demands.

Al-Sarraj pointed out that there were violations and some of the parties that went out to demonstrate did not obtain the necessary permits for the police to protect them. He explained that “infiltrators were among the protesters and attacked properties, and we reject attacking peaceful demonstrators.”

Regarding the electricity crisis, Al-Sarraj mentioned that it is complicated and accumulated for decades, saying that fixing this problem needs cooperation. He also said some areas do not commit to the load shedding hours, which impacts the network and leads to blackouts, pointing out that there are people who intimidate the employees of the electricity company and force them not to carry electricity outages in certain cities.

Al-Sarraj stressed that the Government of National Accord seeks to achieve justice among the various regions in the process of power outages, and is working on new projects to alleviate the deficiency in generating electricity.

He said that the country is in “the summer peak period and there is no magic wand to solve the electricity crisis.”

“We will not allow our legitimacy to be dropped in the street and the country to enter into a political vacuum,” Al-Sarraj said, adding that “local and foreign corrupt money plays a role in creating crises.”

While Al-Sarraj wished to hold elections next March according to a clear constitutional base, he talked about the existence of parties that do not want to hold the elections under the pretext of deteriorating security and other pretexts.

The Head of the Presidential Council called on the supervisory authorities to identify the areas of corruption and hold the corrupt accountable, stressing his commitment to continuing economic reforms and protecting the Libyan currency from speculation.

Al-Sarraj pointed out that the oil blockades during the past years have caused Libya to lose 250 billion dollars, and that the Government of National Accord may not be able to pay the salaries of employees due to the oil shutdown.

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