Amidst flaring tensions, new Libyan parliament hopeful

Teenaged girls singing Britney Spears, children running up and down the hallways and men sitting at tables enjoying cups of coffee and a cigarette. This is the scene in the Maseera Hotel, in the hilly coastal city of Tobruk in Libya’s northeast. It is the closest city to Libya’s border with Egypt, and has been chamber to the country’s parliament since it commenced in early August. 

With a sense of anarchy filling the air inside the hotel, the House of Representatives (HoR) - Libya’s newly elected parliament - are optimistic, even with the complexity of the situation at hand. The atmosphere is much like it was in 2011, just after the revolution to oust dictator Muammar Gaddafi began; there are lots of good intentions and ideas, but the lack of coordination or planning means the simplest of tasks go unattended. 

HoR member, Amal Bayou, representing Benghazi, is confident that things will be sorted out in Libya: “My name is Amal, which means ‘many hopes’ and I am my name,” she said, sitting inside the main chamber used by the HoR. Amal brought her family to Tobruk a few days ago, fearing that something could happen to them in her home city of Benghazi. 

With dwindling security, the Libyan state is increasingly losing any grip it has over both the capital in the west, Tripoli, and the country’s second city in the east, Benghazi, which have been overrun with fiery militia wars raging for the past months. The HoR’s base in the generally safe north-eastern city of Tobruk is surrounded and guarded by US-made Humvees and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns belonging to the Libyan army. 

“Tobruk is safe, here there is a police and army force,” says Bayou, who lost her nephew when a stray missile hit her brother’s house in Benghazi, the city in which the HoR were supposed to commence. 

The situation in Libya is nowhere near as clean-cut as it was three years ago. Now different tribal and ideological militias are forming alliances against one another, in a political and military struggle for power that can’t quite see the light at the end of tunnel.

The HoR are Libya’s second democratically elected parliament in three years, but Islamist-leaning members of Libya’s political system, who dominated the previous parliament, the General National Congress (GNC), lost the last elections and decided to boycott the sessions held in Tobruk. This split the country politically and militarily.

Militias allied to Islamist politicians led offensives in the country’s two largest cities in hopes of reclaiming control by more forceful means, after losing the battle on the political table.  

The move was successful in Tripoli, as forces from the port city of Misrata wrested control of the city from HoR allied forces from the mountain town of Zintan. The Misrata fighters later requested that the GNC be reinstated in the HoR’s stead - the GNC has since then commenced their meetings again, and have even appointed their own cabinet.

A member of that new cabinet, Mustafa Glieb from Misrata, is now justice minister. Speaking in Misrata, he told the Middle East Eye that “the HoR are not legitimate.” Glieb believed that only a few members were attending; not enough to be passing any laws or decisions. 

The HoR reacted to the announcment of reinstatement by declaring the GNC loyal forces “terrorists,” a decision HoR member Jalal Shwehdi believes was sent out in the heat of the moment. 

“What they [the Misrata militias] did in Tripoli was an act of terrorism, but that does not mean the militia is itself a terrorist organisation,” said Shwehdi. 

“The HoR has just passed a terrorism definition and trial law,” said Shwehdi, who hopes that with this law the international community - whom he believes will not leave Libya’s side - will do more to help. 

“We don’t have a force to implement these laws against these groups,” said Shwehdi. “The international community must assist us with this.”

Militarily, the only move to tackle the growing extremist Islamist presence in Libya, which the UAE has described as “a hub for terrorism,” has come from a retired general; Khalifa Haftar led offensives in Benghazi against radical Islamist militias without the authorisation of the previous Islamist-dominated parliament, the GNC. The militias who had been assassinating Libyan army and police forces for the past two years still hold sway in Benghazi, after Haftar’s forces in Tripoli lost ground to Islamist-leaning militias from Misrata.

Politically, the country is more polarised than ever - the European Union and United Nations have sent delegations in an attempt to bring both parties to the table for dialogue, but with the HoR passing its own government in the coming days in Tobruk, and the GNC commencing its duties in Tripoli, the situation is not improving.

Bayou believes the GNC are hungry for power. “Their militias don’t control Tobruk,” she said, “that’s why they are recommencing.”

However, the GNC’s new justice minister thought there were other more appropriate places to meet. “Sirt, Jufra, these are all safe cities the HoR could meet in,” he said, “so why did they opt for Tobruk?” He believed the HoR was under Haftar’s control, making it unsafe for members from Misrata to attend there. 

Two major movements are clearly present in Libya - the Libya Dawn Operation in support of the Islamist-leaning GNC led by forces from Misrata, and the Libya Dignity movement now supporting the HoR led by Khalifa Haftar. However, fractions between the different militias and armed groups that form the operations mean that it’s not a typical two-sided conflict.

Armed groups in the country are quick to declare foes, but are not so keen on showing who exactly they support. Forces will fight alongside each other without hesitation if they have a common enemy. 

With all that’s going on, Bayou is determined to keep working. “I didn’t come here to sit on a chair,” she said. Bayou received more votes than anyone else attending the HoR in Tobruk, and she vows not to fail the people she represents in this dark time Libya is facing.