For a long time, Libyans used to think that the ghost of civil war would not hover over their country, despite the presence of political conflict and the ideological differences between streams trying to reach power. Each party has its own armed militia which it uses to protect itself and to support its own political stances.

For a long time, Libyans used to think that the ghost of civil war would not hover over their country, despite the presence of political conflict and the ideological differences between streams trying to reach power. Each party has its own armed militia which it uses to protect itself and to support its own political stances.

This has long been the case in the Islamic political stream. Its militias besieged the national congress to pass the political exclusion law and stormed a number of ministries and kidnapped ministers to pressure the government into implementing their demands. Some militias  kidnapped ambassadors and members of the diplomatic corps to demand the release of prisoners belonging to radical religious groups—they were successful in having their demands met. 

The Qaqaa and the Thunderbolts brigades, affiliated with the civil stream, also attacked the congress’s premises in April of this year, when they announced that they joined Operation Dignity, which created a state of panic among some members of the congress and the employees of its office. 

After this conflict, the results of the elections in the House of Representatives were disappointing for the political Islamic stream, which won only 30 seats out of 188 (insecure cities such as Darna, and some cities that boycotted elections—Zawara for example—did not elect their MP, thus, the number of elected members did not reach 200).

As a result, Tripoli, the capital and Benghazi have witnessed a fierce war between the different armed militias to control these cities.   

Running congress in a war zone

Benghazi was chosen as the official premises and the permanent home of the parliament as part of the February Committee’s proposal (a committee mandated by the outgoing National Congress to prepare a road map for bringing the country out of the constitutional crisis after the end of the congressional term and the conflict over the alternative body which will take power).

This led some Islamist deputies to voice their objection to the decision—which has been under the control of the Libyan army—while the civil stream adhered to the decision and refused to discuss the issue further. 

But the military situation has changed and Benghazi has fallen under the control of Ansar al-Sharia and militias loyal to the Islamic stream. In the meantime, a war has been raging between the different brigades in Tripoli. 

Amid these conditions, there has been coordination between the parliament members and the congress’s office to convene the parliament in Tobruk, in the far east of the country close to the borders with Egypt. Tobruk has been chosen as the temporary headquarters of the parliament for a number of reasons: its location in the eastern area, which is not too far from Benghazi and because it is calm and relatively distant from the ongoing conflict.

On the other hand,  parliament members, affiliated with the political Islamic stream, refused to go to Tobruk and demanded convening the parliament in Benghazi. They claimed that if they went to Tobruk, they would be violating the Constitutional Declaration and the proposal of the February Committee.  

However, their few seats in the parliament did not entitle them to impose their vision on all parliament members. The parliament held its first session, which was attended by more than 144 MPs out of 188 who came to Tobruk, after very tedious travel journeys, especially MPs from the western and southern areas because of the closure of the Tripoli airport—the only other airport which is still working now is in Mitiqa and is under the control of an Islamic militia that hindered the arrival of 2 MPs to Tobruk. 

The majority of the parliament members were forced to travel to Tunisia and then to Tobruk, and some of them were forced to go to Cairo or Jordan before heading to Tobruk on arduous journeys, while some MPs traveled from a small airport in the town of Zintan. 

The parliament convened

At the official level, the parliament held its first session  on August 2 in Tobruk. This was considered a preparatory meeting in deference to Nouri Bu Sahmai, the outgoing president of the congress, who called for a session on August 4, without specifying the venue in order to allow the head of the national congress’s office to specify it. 

The president of the office contacted the interior ministry and the response came in writing that it was impossible to hold the parliament sessions in Benghazi or Tripoli because of the deteriorating security situation in the two cities. In its letter, the ministry suggested holding the parliament session in the Tobruk city as a more convenient place.

The Constitutional Declaration and its amendments, as suggested by the February Commission, states in one of its articles: “Premises of the parliament are in Benghazi city and it could convene in any other city.”

Nevertheless, the outgoing president of the congress and other members who refuse Tobruk as an appropriate subsititute meeting place argue that it is unconstitutional and they refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of the parliamentary session.   

Declared positions

They insist that Nouri Bu Sahmain, the President of the Congress, had already specified Tripoli as the place for the convening of the parliament and he had earlier announced this on his Facebook page. On this basis, they filed a law suit before the Supreme Court to prove the unconstitutionality of parliamentary sessions.

Ali Bu Zakouk, an MP from Benghazi and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement, said in his objection that “the parliament should not convene before the Libya Dawn Operation reaches decisive military results.” 

Salah al-Baccouche, a political activist and a member of the Union for the Nation, an Islamic party headed by Abdul Rahman Sowaihili, said he opposes holding the meeting in Tobruk because it is unconstitutional.

He insists that Tobruk is the premises for the administration of Operation Dignity and that the parliament would be under the influence of those forces and their threats.

MP Abdul Rauf al-Manaei, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement claimed: “MPs are detained in Tobruk under threats,” although they went there of their own accord. 

MPs who belong to the civil stream deny that they are being pressured and they stress that they went to Tobruk because of the violent events taking place elsewhere the country. 

They say the objections of the Islamic bloc are nothing but attempts to make the parliament fail or to drag it to convene in a city under its control.

There is an on-going controversy between two blocs. The first one is still holding meetings and broadcasting them on air. The second one refuses to join the meetings and tries to pressure those who joined them to withdraw, as was the case with the Sabha MPs with whom the MPs of the city of Misrata met in an attempt to convince them not to join the parliament sessions until the Supreme Court issues its verdict on the constitutionality of holding these sessions in Tobruk.

If we consider the definition of civil war as the presence of two political bodies, each claiming that it has the legitimacy to rule the country and with a war going on between the two parties, we can say that Libya today is witnessing a civil war.

 If the two parties do not return to the dialogue table and learn the lessons taught by the history of countries that have lived the bitterness of civil wars, Libya will continue to be caught by these political, military and constitutional conflicts.