The Speaker of the House of Representatives (HoR), Aqila Saleh, met with the UN envoy to Libya, Abdoulaye Bathily, on Sunday and they discussed holding presidential and parliamentary elections and forming a unified government.
Spokesman for the HoR Abdullah Blehiq said that the meeting was held in Saleh’s office in Al-Qubba, and they discussed the latest developments in the political situation in Libya, in addition to the formation of a unified government that would oversee the holding of elections. He said they had agreed to take the necessary measures to hold elections in the near future.
The HoR member Abdelmonem Al-Arfi told the Libya Panorama TV channel that Speaker Saleh is boycotting the HoR sessions and will not attend any upcoming session before implementing the electoral laws, including the condition of forming a new government.
Al-Arfi said that the UN envoy to Libya had not presented any initiative to the HoR related to laws or anything else so far, indicating that the HoR did not express any positive position regarding electoral laws as "its position is still unclear."
Sources close to Saleh spoke earlier about the latter’s intention to boycott HoR sessions as a means of putting pressure on UNSMIL and the international community to work on implementing the election laws that were approved by the HoR unilaterally without referring to the High Council of State.
