Libya's electoral board suggests postponing president elections until January 24

Libya’s electoral board has suggested that this week’s presidential election should be postponed by a month to January 24. The statement by the High National Electoral Commission (HNEC) on Wednesday came after a parliamentary committee tasked with overseeing the electoral process said it was “impossible” to hold the first round of presidential polls on Friday, as originally scheduled. “After consulting the technical, judicial and security reports, we inform you of the impossibility of holding the elections on the date of December 24, 2021, provided for by the electoral law,” Al Hadi al-Sagheer, the chairman of the committee, wrote on Wednesday to the head of parliament. Earlier this week, the head of the HNEC had ordered the dissolution of the electoral committees nationwide, without naming a final list of candidates, in a move that effectively postponed the election. The collapse of the United Nations-backed electoral process had been widely expected amid ongoing disputes over the rules, including the eligibility of several divisive main candidates. It comes after months of arduous preparations and international negotiations, dealing a huge blow to efforts to end 10 years of chaos in
Read the full article here: Al Jazeera