Playing Pick-Up-Sticks in Libya—3

The absence of national elections in Libya, which are systematically postponed by the elites, once again emphasizes the inapplicability of such instruments in the local context. Elections could be a facade for solidifying political agreements between individual clans, but the elites are not interested in and the external factor is not capable of catalyzing this process in the current situation.

Regional powers and international organizations are eager to play a more significant role in the Libyan settlement, although they often have different foreign policy priorities and, over the decade of the crisis, have preferred to predominantly manage risks and gain short- and medium-term benefits instead of assuming responsibility and pursuing an active peacekeeping policy. After 2019, Turkey can be considered an exception. The normalization of Egyptian-Turkish and Turkish-Emirati relations in recent years, as well as Ankara’s willingness to develop cooperation on the Libyan dossier with Moscow, could bring elements of new dynamics to the Libyan process. Nevertheless, the limited resources and lack of political will—both on the part of the Gulf States and Libyan neighbors in North Africa—make it impossible to identify any regional actor capable of single-handed domination in Libya. All of this makes the local level of the conflict quite significant.

At the local level, the key parameter of the intra-elite arrangements is agreements on the redistribution of oil revenues. One can note the growing pressure from the House of Representatives and the LNA—including in terms of tightening the legal framework and formalizing the interests—on Dbeibah’s government, which, in turn, seeks to undermine its competitors from within. This comes amidst the increased presence of a new generation of elite clan representatives in the public space, as Dbeibah and his family members, as well as Haftar’s sons are increasing their influence not only in the economy and security sector, but also in the political space. Despite the tactical arrangements that have allowed for some kind of status quo to be fixed over the past years, the parties view them as temporary. This explains the lack of formal enforcement of these agreements and the turmoil around the National Oil Company, the Central Bank and other structures.

Under these circumstances, global and regional actors have arguably learned over the years of the Libyan crisis to manage risks, but not to cooperate in promoting conflict resolution and normalization of life in Libya. At the local level, there is a step-by-step revision of informal agreements that emerged after the escalation of the armed conflict in 2019-2020, leading to the redistribution of property, but not to overcoming the “path dependence” that turned the political crisis into a protracted and permanent state of the Libyan political system and society.

Seven years ago, the authors suggested that the main external actors in the long-suffering Libyan settlement process were engaged in a pick-up-sticks. The meaning of this old game is in using a special hook to pull out of a pile of miniature toys those that are similar or have something in common, one by one, without touching or scattering the others.

The Libyan political crisis has been brewing for more than thirteen years, consistently moving from stagnation to transformation, impeding the normal development of statehood, the restoration of civil peace and economic prosperity in this wealthy North African country. The competitive coexistence of two governments—the internationally recognized Government of National Unity (GNU) led by Abdel Hamid Dbeibah, based in Tripoli in the west, and the rival Government of National Stability (GNSt) in the east—continues with no end in sight. Against this backdrop, the High Council of State (HCS) and the House of Representatives also coexist, positioning themselves as legislative bodies representing all territories and population groups. Legislatures east of the Sirte-Jufrah dividing line rely on the military might of the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by self-proclaimed Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, while to the west, the real power on the ground is often held by various armed groups and militias.

Ruslan Mamedov, Grigory Lukyanov:
Playing Pick-Up-Sticks in Libya

In 2020, thanks to the mediation of Russia and Turkey, a ceasefire was established in Libya, making it possible to stop large-scale armed clashes between the LNA and the GNU forces that had lasted since April 2019 and to start resetting of the political process in late 2020–early 2021. The Government of National Accord led by Fayez al-Sarraj, established in 2016 as part of the implementation of the 2015 Skhirat Agreement, and the Interim Government of Abdullah al-Thani, formed with the support of the House of Representatives and the LNA in Tobruk, all resigned. The UN-brokered Political Dialogue Forum held in Tunisia proclaimed the consolidation of eastern and western power institutions under the canopy of the newly formed Presidential Council headed by Mohamed Younis al-Menfi and the Government of National Unity led by Abdul Hamid Dbeibah. It is noteworthy and symbolic that it was in the status of the head of the unified Libyan government, representing the entire state of Libya for the first time since the beginning of the civil war in 2014, that Dbeibah visited Moscow in the spring of 2021, and it was in this capacity that he was received by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

Meanwhile, both the Presidential Council and the GNU received support and recognition from the House of Representatives and the High Council of State (HCS) only insofar as their main objective was stated to be the preparation for national presidential and parliamentary elections in December of the same year. However, the elections did not take place in December 2021, 2022 or 2023 for a variety of reasons, including the lack of a legislative framework, security conditions and, most importantly, consensus among the mainstream political class and factions of the political elites on the parameters of the political process, individual guarantees and a vision for the future.

In January 2022, the House of Representatives demanded the immediate resignation of Dbeibah, who had failed in his mission to organize elections but had squandered the time and public resources entrusted to him, in order to consolidate his own political clout and public support. The coalition of the prime minister’s opponents, which united many politicians in both east and west, even appointed his successor. Although several ministers announced their voluntary resignation, Dbeibah himself had by this time secured support from the U.S., Turkey and the UAE, cultivated ties with leaders of armed militias and municipalities, and therefore refused to leave his post, staying at the helm of the government. Nevertheless, a Government of National Stability was formed in parallel, headed by former GNU Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha, who remained in office for about 15 months. During this time, Bashagha’s repeated attempts to march on Tripoli and oust Dbeibah, exploiting public discontent, the arbitrariness of paramilitary groups and inefficiency of the bureaucracy, as well as clan ties in both politicians’ hometown of Misrata, failed. As a result, on May 16, 2023, the House of Representatives assigned GNSt Finance Minister Osama Hammad to serve as prime minister in place of Fathi Bashagha.

In September 2022, a Senegalese diplomat named Abdoulaye Bathily was appointed as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Libya and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL). He had a large stake in the plan to prepare a national conference to ensure the necessary political consensus for the elections. Thus, after three years in which UNSMIL, under the leadership of U.S. diplomat Stephanie Williams, was transformed from an instrument for promoting a political solution to the Libyan crisis into a means of advancing U.S. foreign policy interests in Libya, there has been a partial return to the inclusive dialogue-based settlement roadmap proposed by the previous head of the Mission, Lebanon’s Ghassan Salame. In addition, Bathily made every effort to engage regional international organizations, particularly the African Union (AU) and the League of Arab States (LAS), in helping to resolve the crisis, as well as to enhance their role in the national settlement.

On March 10, 2024, at the Cairo conference, the Libyan politicians in attendance agreed on the “need” to form a new unified government that would hold long-delayed elections and to establish a technical committee to “study the points of contention.” The meeting in Cairo was held under the auspices of the LAS Secretary-General, Egyptian diplomat Ahmed Aboul Gheit. The event was attended by Aguila Saleh Issa as Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mohammed Takala as Chairman of the High Council of State, and Mohamed al-Menfi as Chairman of the Libyan Presidential Council.

Nevertheless, skeptics pointed out that the statements in Cairo had little to do with reality. Fair and competitive elections, like the ones that took place three years ago, could mean the removal from office of those who held important positions in various segments of the Libyan state machine and had the funds and resources of the wartime economy under their control. The rotation of elites, which is seen by election proponents inside and outside Libya as a necessary measure to restart the political process and to restore the legitimacy of state institutions, threatens the interests and positions of those who are currently wallowing in money at the pinnacle of the Libyan political pyramid. Those who have accumulated their weight, capital and influence during the civil war are able to protect and increase them by the same means under the ongoing legal uncertainty and the dictates of the “wartime laws”: whoever is strongest is in the right. There is no reason why these same individuals might want to promote and hold elections, as well as to take real progressive steps toward the transition to a “new normal” if their legal, economic and political inviolability are no longer warranted.

Ruslan Mamedov, Grigory Lukyanov:
Playing Pick-Up-Sticks in Libya — 2

On March 31, 2024, the residence of Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Dbeibah was attacked by unknown assailants using grenade launchers, but no one was injured. It was reported that the attack actually targeted the residence of the Prime Minister’s influential nephew and official advisor, Ibrahim Dbeibah. This event shows that one should not underestimate the significance of armed militias, which have become intertwined with both criminal networks/communities and the bureaucracy, thereby turning into a crucial stakeholder of all processes in the region.

Despite the Dbeibah clan’s significant success in consolidating GNU power in the northwest, the region remains an area of fierce competition between various paramilitary groups for control of revenue sources. The main resource is the transportation infrastructure, which includes not only the pipelines pumping oil, but also the roads that carry the vast majority of cargo traffic —both legal and smuggled goods, which includes arms, drugs and human trafficking. Groups associated with the GNU, but not under its total control, have consistently sought throughout 2023–2024 to deprive local elites of their dominant position on transportation and trade routes. A militia man, GNU Interior Minister Imad Trabelsi, took an active part in redistributing the spheres of influence in Tripoli to promote Dbeibah’s interests, and formations acting on his behalf were active in the spring of 2024 in the “clean-up of criminal and terrorist elements” around the city of Zintan and in areas densely populated by Amazigh. Previously, Zintan and the Amazigh were able to maintain their independence by controlling the roads connecting the interior of the country with the state border. But growing claims from competitors operating under the auspices of the GNU Interior Ministry drew a reaction from local leaders, who began to make big public statements of political nature—for example, fervently calling for elections to be held as soon as possible and demanding full participation rights for Seif-al-Islam Gaddafi. The green flag of the Jamahiriya, reappearing in Libya’s media space, is a precise indication of the local elites’ readiness to defend their economic interests publicly and with much resolve.

The key source of income for Libya’s rulers is oil revenues. In this regard, the removal of Oil and Gas Minister Mohammed Aoun in late March–early April 2024 was a significant development. In his place, former Deputy Oil Minister Khalifa Abdul Sadiq, who is close to the Prime Minister’s nephew Ibrahim Dbeibah, was appointed as interim minister. The appointment of a well-connected new minister unlocked major hydrocarbon projects, but also demonstrated the vulnerability of the oil and gas sector to the country’s chronic political instability. Meanwhile, Libyan production is generally quite stable at 1.14 million bpd, but can be affected by a variety of factors stemming from the political uncertainty in the country as a whole and the conflict of “economic actors” as the wartime economic conditions persist.

The suspension of Mohammed Aoun has once again sparked interest in corruption schemes in Libya’s oil and gas sector and the vast NC-7 Hamada gas field development project. According to S&P Global Commodity Insights, Aoun had previously questioned the costs and investor selection process for the gas project, claiming that cost recovery provisions were too generous for participating foreign operators, including Italy’s Eni, UAE’s ADNOC and France’s Total Energies. Aoun’s successor, Khalifa Abdul Sadiq, was expected to be more accommodating to the National Oil Company (NOC) and foreign investors, yet documents emerged in the media as early as April indicating that the charges against Aoun had been dropped and he could be reinstated in his office.

In addition to the Ministry of Oil and Gas, the apparatus struggle continues within the Central Bank. In the spring of 2024, Central Bank Governor al-Sadiq al-Kabir entered into an open confrontation with A. Dbeibah, publicly pointing to the government’s mistakes and admitting disagreement with its policies. Al-Sadiq al-Kabir, who had previously ignored parliamentary decisions, citing public doubts about the legitimacy of the House of Representatives, effected a rapprochement with Speaker Aguila Saleh, which may eventually have a negative impact on Dbeibah’s positions.

The external dimension of the Libyan crisis

Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, the recession in the global economy, and the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine, the Libyan crisis has lost its high profile in world politics that it had claimed after the escalation of the armed conflict in 2019–2020. A number of external actors that had become prominent in the Libyan field during the previous period either lost interest in Libya or significantly scaled down their activity in this area for various reasons. For example, in the midst of de-escalation and normalization of relations between Qatar and GCC partners, which drew a line under the Qatar crisis that sparked in 2017, Doha has noticeably reduced information, financial and organizational support to Libyan politicians, parties and associations previously under its tutelage. The activity of the KSA, the UAE and Egypt in eastern Libya has decreased commensurately and proportionately, although the said states have never refused to support the parties to the Libyan confrontation in their negotiation efforts. A number of African states, including Libya’s Maghreb neighbors Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, actively promoted themselves as mediators and sponsors of the negotiation processes under the auspices of the UN, LAS and AU. Nevertheless, they failed to achieve meaningful results, primarily due to their own limited resources and lack of sufficient political will to assert themselves as a significant and independent stakeholder in the Libyan crisis. The extremely unfavorable development of the situation in the Sahel also forced France to adopt a wait-and-see and cautious policy.

Denis Mirgorod:
Libya Interregnum

At the same time, the activity of the US and the UK in Libya increased significantly in 2020–2023. Not only did they monopolize the negotiation process under UN auspices, but also vigorously stepped in Libyan political life. The commencement of the SMO prompted the US to exert direct pressure on its counterparties to publicly condemn Russia, on the one hand, and to ramp up oil production as well as oil and gas exports to Europe, on the other hand. To reach this end, U.S. diplomats squandered much of their previously accumulated authority and resources in Libya without getting the expected results in full.

Since 2019, Turkey’s influence in Libya has grown so unprecedentedly fast and steadily that Ankara in the early 2020s could confidently claim to be not just the strongest or key player, but the hegemon in the Libyan space. Only Turkey, backed by the diaspora and friendly political forces, was able to build a comprehensive strategy of penetration and consolidation in Libya that included security, political, economic and cultural tools within the shortest possible time. In 2019, the GNU in Tripoli, in the face of the LNA’s military threat, uniquely empowered Turkey with a political-military and economic presence in Libya in exchange for operational assistance in repelling the offensive of Haftar’s forces. But engagement with the UAE, Egypt, and Russia in other areas of regional and global politics in recent years has allowed Turkey to markedly reduce tensions and improve relations with the House of Representatives and Khalifa Haftar in the East. Earlier, Turkey and Russia had done a lot to ensure the conflict-free realization of their interests in Libya. Meanwhile, in the process of Turkish-Egyptian rapprochement, common points on the Libyan track keep emerging. Thus, on April 20, 2024, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said at a press conference in Istanbul with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry that his country’s positions are close to Egypt’s in striving “for the unity and sovereignty of Libya.” Sameh Shoukry, in turn, emphasized the importance of joint coordination with Turkey to achieve stability in Libya and in the entire region. Some Turkish experts even suggest formats such as a “Cairo Conference” that would involve different stakeholders, including Russia, Turkey and Egypt, which could contribute to a Libyan settlement.

Turkey, which has had longstanding ties with elite clans in Tripoli and Misrata, has a “permanent presence” at the al-Watiya airbase near Zintan and naval bases in Misrata and Homs, as well as direct contact with some militia groups in Tripoli. Turkish goods can be found on store shelves in all parts of the country, and Turkish companies are involved in major restoration, construction and infrastructure projects in both the west and the east. Nevertheless, Turkey’s growing influence cannot help but also provoke some opposition. In August 2023, mass actions took place in Tripoli against the establishment of a new Turkish military base in Homs, as well as the presence of Turkish-affiliated Syrian mercenaries in Libya. In February 2024, the 2019 Memorandum on the Delimitation of Maritime Zones in the Mediterranean Sea, which was the most important achievement of Turkish policy in Libya and the main tool in its geopolitical struggle for control over natural gas exports from the Eastern Mediterranean to Europe, was not ratified.

Generational transition in the elite and influential children of clans in power

The status quo has allowed political leaders to remain in power and accumulate extraordinary wealth, even though a third of Libya’s population lives below the poverty line. Billions of dollars in oil revenues remain unaccounted for, and the National Oil Corporation estimates that up to a third of the oil and diesel supplied by the state is smuggled out. A former senior UN official referred to this scheme as a “redistributive kleptocracy.”

The children of Libya’s not-so-young leaders play a special role in this massive corruption. We have previously noted the growing influence of Ibrahim Dbeibah, the nephew of Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Dbeibah from the Government of National Unity. On the other side of the river, Khalifa Haftar’s children are effectively advancing their careers. Haftar’s son Belqassim was sworn in by House Speaker Aguila Saleh as the CEO of the newly established Development and Reconstruction Fund, whose task will be implementing plans and programs to rehabilitate and develop Libyan cities in all regions. This move comes amid allegations against Haftar and his sons of financial and administrative corruption, as well as the embezzlement of public funds from eastern Libya.

As reported by regional media, the gap between Dbeibah and Haftar in the domestic field is slowly being filled largely due to the close relationship between junior members of the two families, who have benefited from deals resulting from these ties which are referred to as a “corruption pact.”

Apparently, the status quo, and therefore the unwillingness of Libyan elites to change anything, informed the decision of the UN special envoy for Libya to announce his resignation on April 16, 2024. Senegalese diplomat Abdoulaye Bathily, who headed UNSMIL, said that despite all efforts made, there was a lack of political will and faith, and announced the postponement of a national reconciliation conference originally scheduled for April 28, with no new date set. He also stated that “the current leaders’ selfish determination to maintain the status quo by way of delaying tactics and maneuvers as well as at the expense of the Libyan people must end.” Abdoulaye Bathily’s place was temporarily taken by U.S. diplomat Stephanie Khoury, a former deputy chief of mission. Libya’s Government of National Stability, led by Prime Minister Osama Hammad, openly criticized the outgoing Abdoulaye Bathily, stressing his perceived ineffectiveness and accusing him of bias.

Ivan Bocharov:
The Libyan Crisis: A Hotbed for Regional Instability

In 2023, Osama Hammad succeeded Misrata-born Fathi Bashagha as head of the GNSt, a parallel government. The latter was appointed to this post in 2022 by a very tentative consensus of elites from east and west, with the expectation that he would help prevent the consolidation of Misrata’s military and economic resources in Dbeibah’s hands and thus force him to step down. That reckoning was only partially justified. The forces of the country’s third-largest city stayed out of the GNU-GNSt conflict, thus avoiding an escalation of armed violence. But Dbeibah nevertheless retained power over Tripoli, leaning on the capital’s bureaucracy and militias on the one hand, and splitting the coalition of his opponents, on the other hand. While the HCS and the GNU have continued to be an important component of public politics in Libya until 2024, despite mutual attacks and criticism of the House of Representatives, there is little public dispute between Dbeibah’s GNU and Haftar’s LNA.

On the other hand, the Hammad government is successfully еngaging with the Foundation led by Belqassim Haftar on the issue of reconstruction projects in Libya’s eastern and southern cities. The LNA’s interest in the South has been well known since 2019, as it was from this direction that Field Marshal Haftar’s troops launched their offensive against Tripoli. But in the new realities, it also leads to the development of transit potential, interesting from the perspective of external actors penetrating into the African continent. Nevertheless, it is much more important to note that there is a willingness to build at least a new alliance and at most a new configuration of power on the part of the young leaders from the Dbeibah and Haftar clans.

***

The absence of national elections in Libya, which are systematically postponed by the elites, once again emphasizes the inapplicability of such instruments in the local context. Elections could be a facade for solidifying political agreements between individual clans, but the elites are not interested in and the external factor is not capable of catalyzing this process in the current situation.

Regional powers and international organizations are eager to play a more significant role in the Libyan settlement, although they often have different foreign policy priorities and, over the decade of the crisis, have preferred to predominantly manage risks and gain short- and medium-term benefits instead of assuming responsibility and pursuing an active peacekeeping policy. After 2019, Turkey can be considered an exception. The normalization of Egyptian-Turkish and Turkish-Emirati relations in recent years, as well as Ankara’s willingness to develop cooperation on the Libyan dossier with Moscow, could bring elements of new dynamics to the Libyan process. Nevertheless, the limited resources and lack of political will—both on the part of the Gulf States and Libyan neighbors in North Africa—make it impossible to identify any regional actor capable of single-handed domination in Libya. All of this makes the local level of the conflict quite significant.

At the local level, the key parameter of the intra-elite arrangements is agreements on the redistribution of oil revenues. One can note the growing pressure from the House of Representatives and the LNA—including in terms of tightening the legal framework and formalizing the interests—on Dbeibah’s government, which, in turn, seeks to undermine its competitors from within. This comes amidst the increased presence of a new generation of elite clan representatives in the public space, as Dbeibah and his family members, as well as Haftar’s sons are increasing their influence not only in the economy and security sector, but also in the political space. Despite the tactical arrangements that have allowed for some kind of status quo to be fixed over the past years, the parties view them as temporary. This explains the lack of formal enforcement of these agreements and the turmoil around the National Oil Company, the Central Bank and other structures.

Under these circumstances, global and regional actors have arguably learned over the years of the Libyan crisis to manage risks, but not to cooperate in promoting conflict resolution and normalization of life in Libya. At the local level, there is a step-by-step revision of informal agreements that emerged after the escalation of the armed conflict in 2019-2020, leading to the redistribution of property, but not to overcoming the “path dependence” that turned the political crisis into a protracted and permanent state of the Libyan political system and society.