By: Abdelkader Assad, freelancer journalist
Libya is way more fragmented one year after Skhirat agreement
On December 17, 2015, representatives from what were then the two parties of conflict - the House of Representatives (HoR) and the General National Congress (GNC) gathered in one meeting hall along with the Head of the UNSMIL, Martin Kobler, and Libyan political stakeholders to sign the “Government of National Accord (GNA) agreement.
The signing took effect and the GNA moved into Tripoli four months later, however, looking on the one-year span that this agreement has gone through, one can perceive that the whole GNA deal has definitely gotten off the wrong foot.
One year ago, the GNC and HoR representatives, who signed in Skhirat on the GNA agreement, were not agreed on by neither of the parties, thus making the UN-brokered deal so fragile that it broke on the shores of Tripoli Navy Base, once the GNA Prime Minister, Fayez Al-Sirraj, arrived in April this year.
Since then, not only the GNA helped create a third rival government, besides the GNC’s Salvation Government in Tripoli and the HoR’s Al-Thanni Government in the east, but it also let hell break loose in the country in terms of the basic needs for the citizens.
Post-GNA, there became gradual shortages of cash at the banks that month by month had become a characteristic of the banks in Libya leading to a wide-range anger wave in the country and to the intensification of the feeling of need among many Libyan families, whose money got stuck at the banks and couldn’t cash it out whenever the willed or needed.
Economic conditions fluctuated with the dinar reaching historic fall against the dollar, registering LYD7 for $1 last month while it is still swinging between LYD6.30 and LYD6.50 for $1 nowadays.
Prices of foods and goods rocketed reaching unprecedented and unaffordable costs that cannot be easily provided by the majority of the Libyan citizens, who mostly depend on state salaries for living.
Apart from the living conditions, the era of the GNA brought no new security plans and achieved little, if any, stability at the capital in particular, and the whole country in general.
Crime rates were only on the ascendency in Libya, violations of laws and armed groups clashes broke out any moment surprisingly that they would leave a handful of civilians dead on the roads without intervention of the security departments of the GNA, and let’s take the latest clashes in Tripoli, which left several dead and others wounded in Bab Benghashir and Abu Salim areas in downtown the capital as a living example.
The GNA, politically speaking, is still beating around the bush, the bush of the HoR, as it has been refused the confidence vote many times. The HoR also called on Al-Sirraj and the other members of the GNA and the Presidential Council of the Skhirat agreement to reshuffle their cabinet and include some names it suggested in order to be eligible for a vote of confidence by the Tobruk-based parliament, so what kind of power does the GNA agreement possess?
Neither militarily nor politically and for sure not even economically and socially has the Skhirat agreement paid off. The agreement couldn’t change a single issue that can open a new window of hope for the citizens and for sure it couldn’t establish its grip on the whole country, as many parts in the east and south still lie autonomously detached from it.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Libya Observer