The Emirati newspaper, Al Roya, conducted an interview with the head of the Libyan National Movement Party, Dr. Mustafa Al-Zaidi, about the latest developments in the country against the backdrop of the presidential and parliamentary elections in Libya that are scheduled to be held on the twenty-fourth of January, 2022.
The full transcript of the dialogue is below:
What is your vision of what the Libyan scene led to in terms of postponing the elections?
First, there was great skepticism from the beginning about the conduct of the elections because those who decided to hold elections, the international community, did not seek to hold real elections that would enable the Libyan people to decide their fate and choose the executive and legislative authority they see fit.
It is known that through the 2012 elections political Islam groups were able to control Libya, where it took place according to political isolation laws which excluded more than a third of the population from the right to vote in the elections, as well as the 2014 elections, which, although it produced the House of Representatives, the international community did not practically recognize it, and entered into alternative political agreements, namely the Skhirat Agreement, which from 2015 until today led to deepening political and social crisis. That is why the West does not want elections. All it wants is to keep the situation as it is, because this is very suitable for the countries that toppled the Libyan government and are now exploiting the wealth of the Libyan people.
Does this mean that you are not surprised by its postponement?
We, as a national force, were suspicious of holding the elections, and we were not surprised by the postponement.
In fact, it is not a postponement. The elections are canceled. We are watching a play in every sense of the word. The elections procedures were almost complete in terms of the presence of candidates, the distribution of electoral cards, the lists were sorted, and judgments of primary and appellate appeals were issued. The list of candidates was supposed to be announced on December 7, but no one announced anything until December 23, when the Commission said that it was impossible to conduct elections and postponed them until January 24. in reality, this means canceling the electoral process, because the countries that attacked Libya and have interests in it are aware that the Libyan people will choose a national government that is not at the service of foreign forces.
What is your vision for the government of Abdul Hamid Dabaiba?
The government of Abdel Hamid Dabaiba is illegitimate.
Unfortunately, it imposes things on us as if it were a fait accompli, because the United Nations, through the center for humanitarian dialogue that serves agendas hostile to the Libyan people has chosen 75 personalities. 4 or 5 of them are from the House of Representatives and 4 or 5 personalities are from the State Council, but the rest of the names represent political Islam, and a play took place in Geneva produced the Dabaiba government. The most important question is who chose the 75 members of the so-called National Dialogue? Did the Libyan institutions choose a representative? Did the representatives of the army choose their own men? The government was formed within the framework of quotas and compromises, and each ministry has 4 or 5 undersecretaries who swear an oath to influential individuals in the different regions to please personalities there.
Is the ball now in the court of Parliament or the High Electoral Commission?
Parliament does not have a stadium, nor does the commission. This is a scenario designed from the beginning from the outside and from the United Nations and the center of humanitarian dialogue.
This is why we believe that the international community and the United States do not want elections in Libya. The elections have been canceled, and the ball is not in anyone’s court, no one knows anything about it, neither the Electoral Commission, nor the State Council, nor the Parliament. No one knows what the next step is because the threads of the game are not in their hands. They are in the hands of ambassadors and foreign countries.
There are calls to change the legal basis for the elections.. Do you support this proposal?
Because election laws in the world are almost the same, the Brotherhood wants detailed laws that allow it to rig elections so that their opponents are excluded from the political scene and only they are empowered.
For example, the State Council and Khaled Al-Mashri want a law that prevents Field Marshal Haftar from running for elections. This is their goal. The West wants a law that prevents Saif al-Islam from running. Others want a law that does not allow Fathi Pasha Agha to run, and so on. If we talk about the prime minister who oversees money, controls the police and the civil and security services, and owns everything, he does not abide by the law that states that the official must resign from the position at least 3 months before running for an electoral position. He violated this article. They want to postpone the elections and the only ones who want elections are the Libyan people who want to end this nightmare.
Do you have a vision of how mercenaries and foreign forces will leave Libya?
The mercenaries were pushed to occupy Libya and they represent the interests of foreign countries, not just their own countries. Libya was occupied in 2011 by foreign mercenaries, and now it is managed by foreign mercenaries as well.
Now there are Turkish, French, British and American forces and from the majority of Western nationalities, and most of these countries do not interfere through their regular forces but send mercenaries, and it is known that the United States brought asylum seekers to war with it in Iraq, and said that it will facilitate the procedures for residency and citizenship for them after the end of their role in Iraq, so the talk about the expulsion of mercenaries is really about ending the occupation, and this needs a very huge effort and not just a demand to end mercenaries, and this occupation needs intellectual, cultural, social and military resistance and regional support from Arab and African neighbors, and the Arab peoples of the Third World to support the Libyan people to get rid of this occupation.
Are the militias behind the postponement of the elections?
Foreign countries create the scenario and want to convince people otherwise. They have brought militias into Libya since 2011, imposed them on the political scene and want them to remain.
There are two types of mercenaries, the first is regional militias supported by Western countries that have had interests in Libya since 2011, and the second is the ideological militias that have Western support. These militias do not only have guns, they have heavy weapons, drones and air defense, and therefore they are a protected armed force. We have 8 to 9 militias, all agents of major interests, so they are guns for hire to different countries. They are not a political force. A national state cannot be established in the presence of militias, because the state is built on a national force that relies on an army, police and judiciary.
What about the solution map to the problem of the south?
The problem of the south does not concern Libyans only, but rather the world, and now a demographic change is taking place for the population in the Libyan south.
European ministers and prime ministers discussed settling displaced Africans in the Libyan south so that they would not go to Europe. Their pretext is that Libya is large area with a small population, but their goal is to create an entity that separates the East from the Maghreb, and this matter concerns the Arab nation as a whole. This will be a great danger to the Arab nation for centuries to come.
The security and financial institutions suffer from division… Is there a vision for their unification?
The central bank is not divided because it is completely under the control of the major Western countries.
They appointed Al-Siddiq Al-Kabeer as governor of the Central Bank. The man has nothing to do with Libya, and works in the interest of these major Western countries. For nearly 5 years, Libya has had no budget, and it is managed according to financial arrangements through ambassadors of the major countries that meet in Britain and make decisions. The governor of the Libyan Central Bank spends 90% of his time between Malta and Britain, and spends only 10% of his time in Libya. That is why the West controls the money.
Also, what has happened is the destruction of the Libyan army using the same strategy of attempts to destroy the Syrian and Iraqi armies within the framework of the so-called Arab Spring.
They tried to repeat the same scenario in Egypt, but they failed due to the awareness of the Egyptian army and the Egyptian security establishment. In Libya, the process was not easy. Field Marshal Haftar and his fellow officers tried to build the army in the eastern region, but the Western refusal to build a Libyan military security institution was clear through the West’s very strong support for the militias, which prevented the army from imposing its will on the entire Libyan territory, which is the right of every national arm. All Western propaganda was directed against the Libyan army by claiming that it was Haftar’s army, as they used to say, Gaddafi’s brigades and Gaddafi’s forces. The western goal was to eliminate any security institution in Libya by personalizing it and inciting people against it.
The 5 + 5 Committee was able to provide a model for unified action between East and West. What is your vision to maximize the return from this committee?
The 5 + 5 Committee is the most substantial evidence that the problem is not between Libyans, because they know that the cause of the crisis is Western intervention.
The West wanted this committee to be nominal and formal, but the officers developed it, and did things like opening the coastal road, but the power is not in their hands. If the decision was in the hands of Libyans, whether they were civilian or military, the problem might have been resolved in hours. We hope that the officers of the 5+5 Committee will continue their work and try to help the Libyan people because people are counting on them.
How do you view the external role after the first and second Berlin and the Paris conference and others?
As for the Berlin conferences or others, they have no results except for long pages of constructivist words. They talk about the protection of Libya and the sovereignty of Libya, and at the same time they allow countries to occupy Libya through mercenaries, and Libya is under the guardianship and Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, and for this we consider the international intervention a subversive intervention.
The Libyan problem is not with all the countries of the United Nations. The problem is with the United States, Britain, France and Italy. Russia and China do not interfere in Libyan affairs. Even talking about Wagner, everyone should know that they came to create a balance with the militias and at the official request from Parliament. This is why the Berlin conferences are formal to show that there is sympathy with the Libyan people. Everyone was talking about the elections and the right of the people to choose their leadership. Today, there is no talk about anything, as if December 24 did not exist, so this is merely propaganda.
How do you view the role of neighboring countries in helping Libya return to stability again?
We know that the neighboring countries are trying to help Libya as much as they can, but the major countries are in control of the matter. The brothers in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Niger and Chad are trying as much as they can, and they have received a very large number of Libyan displaced people. After 2011 there were about 2 million Libyan immigrants, nearly a third of the population. After June 30, 2013, Libyans breathed a sigh of relief, and the neighboring countries tried to carry the message of the Libyan people. Today the Libyan national forces appreciate the position of the United Arab Emirates, which stands by the Libyan people, and has helped carry the message of Libyans abroad, contributing via the media to clarify the reality of the situation.
INTERNATIONALIST 360° 