The Tobruk-based House of Representatives (HoR) has elected Mohammed Al-Shukri a new governor for the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) in a parliament session today.
Al-Shukri was voted a new governor by 54 HoR members, while Ali Al-Hibri received 3 votes, Ahmed Rajab 38 votes and Abdelhamid Al-Shikhi 9 votes, with 3 votes being scrapped.
Tuesday’s session was delayed for some time as loyalists to Khalifa Haftar stormed the headquarters of the HoR and prevented the MPs from entering, protesting the continuation of the political process after December 17 and calling for mandating Haftar to rule Libya.
Meanwhile, Monday’s HoR session was postponed to Tuesday over dispute among the members about the schedule of the meeting, with pro-political agreement members wanting to include it in the constitutional declaration and the anti-political agreement members wanting to elect a new CBL governor before going into the other matters.
Pro-Haftar protesters calling themselves “Popular Mandate Committee” shut the HoR building this morning and banned every member from entering until they were given guarantees that the inclusion of the political agreement in the constitutional declaration won’t be discussed in the session, rather, only the election of the CBL governor will be tackled.
Observers say that the election of a CBL governor by the HoR is a step deeper taken into the political chaos that is going on at the time being, saying it is only ink on paper as it violates Article 15 of the Libyan Political Agreement that says the HoR should coordinate with the High Council of State in electing new appointees for state positions.
Meanwhile, the Head of the UNSMIL Ghassan Salame visited Tobruk on Tuesday and met with the HoR Speaker Aqilah Saleh as well as a number of members, discussing the latest on the Libyan political scene, according to the HoR media bureau.
