By Khalifa Albishbash, a Libyan writer and blogger

More than two months have passed since the ministers of the parallel government headed by Mr. Fathi Bashagha took the oath in “the sitting room” of Agila, where the Prime Minister designate promised to start his work from Tripoli. Apparently, these days have not yet come and the dream to enter the capital faded away.

Since then, dozens of debates on various platforms between opponents of this parallel government and its supporters who always shift the debate to marginal issues, evading the main structural problems of this very government right from the outset and the way it was formed, accusing their opponents enormous accusations from backing corruption to supporting terrorism, a charge they learned thanks to the recent honeymoon with Haftar activists. Perhaps we should summarize the article here and ask them to answer these simple questions:

Haftar participated in the formation of the Government of National Unity, "the government of Dabaiba" and had half of the members of the dialogue committee formed by the United Nations, as he named the deputy Prime Minster and a number of ministers, in addition to that Dabaiba and Menfi were completely silent about Haftar's movements in the south, his various mobilizations and provocative statements, while they obligate Qanunu, Juwaili and others to remain silent on various issues! In addition, Dabaiba and his Minister of Finance illegally paid what Haftar has claimed for in form of salaries without providing the Finance with any data to prove this, and his insistence on obtaining the money without going through any legal procedure, and yet Dabaiba and his government accepted in violation of the law! Despite all these concessions, Haftar did not even allow Dabaiba to land at the airports of Sabha and Benghazi and obstructed him with everything at his disposal.

The obvious question here is that, what are the additional things that Bashagha has to offer Haftar, so that the latter mobilizes all his military, media and political tools in his support?

Then, if Dabaiba’s problem is his inability to control and work in the areas controlled by Haftar, as supporters of the parallel government claim, then this argument implicitly means that Bashagha has the ability to control and work there, and the question is why is he not working then? Why did he not start implementing his government's security plans that he had promised, and start from Jufra, for example? Can Bashagha and his Minister of Interior change even a director of a smallest security directorate in the areas controlled by Haftar and his militias? We do not want to ask miracle questions such as: Can Bashagha change even a guard or a cook in the military camps and facilities run by Haftar and his children? Because this - God forbid! - is a measure that they cannot dream even of thinking to propose.

Another justification that Bashagha gave in his Facebook speeches to justify the existence of his government is the corruption of the Dabaiba government. This corruption is undoubtedly true, but Bashagha never talked about the corruption of his ally, who sorrowed debts of Libyan banks for more than 40 billions, which in fact he took by force (excluding the debts of the Thinni government).  In addition to the establishment of an illegal investment entity that relies on force to steal resources and acquire state-owned assets and sell them without even going through any formal legal procedure, knowing that Haftar’s sons, as Bashagha himself put it; ‘Visit countries as envoys to explain his government’s point of view, using private planes and bank assets in billions. Bashagha never asks, indeed he cannot dare even to whisper about the source of this money! or how did Haftar’s kids have amassed all this wealth?

The problem with the parallel government does not lie in the person of Bashagha, nor in the support or opposition of Dabaiba or others. The problem of the parallel government is simply that it is Haftar's government. He is the one who created, formed and supported it, and he and his sons practically control it. The very idea of Haftar as the "maker of governments" and who "appoints “head of government in place of another cannot be accepted.

Furthermore, the Bashagha government was not even be subjected to the flawed logic of previous dialogues that at least takes into account a minimum degree of equilibrium in the matter of forming a government, even though it was the logic that produced weak and corrupt governments, and half of its ministers were appointed by Haftar, who never accepted it as a partner in his areas of control.

However, this time he goes as far as brazenly producing a government by himself and adopting it in Aqila’s setting room alone without the participation of others in its matter, after which he kept low profile, leaving Bashagha and his supporters as his spokesmen defenders.

Objecting to the parallel government is neither support for Dabaiba nor acceptance of corruption that Bashagha’s ally considered as one of its pillars. It is simply an objection to the brazenness and impudence an insolent attempt to install the war criminal Haftar as the king above all who is solely responsible for appointing and dismissing governments. This is a farce that cannot even be discussed!

 

Disclaimer:  The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Libya Observer

 

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