Abdullah Alkabir
Following the initiative of Musa Al-Koni, a member of the Presidential Council (PC) representing the south, to go back to the three-region system politically and the previous governorate system administratively, Abdullah Al-Lafi, a member of the PC representing the west, is proposing another initiative.
He proposes the election of a three-headed Presidential Council, the same composition as the current Presidential Council, but elected directly by the people, and dividing the country administratively according to the thirteen electoral districts. Mohamed Menfi, Head of the Council, did not miss the presidential initiative season, proposing a popular referendum on the contentious points of the electoral laws.
In fact, all initiatives or proposals contain ideas worthy of discussion and can be built upon and developed to produce a solid formulation that could be key to resolving the crisis. However, a question has been raised by almost all commentators on the initiatives:
Why do the initiatives come from individual Council members? or in other words?
Why doesn’t the Presidential Council propose a single, comprehensive initiative that represents the PC’s collective vision for a political solution?
All answers pointed to the existence of deep disagreements among the PC members, and they did not reach an understanding that would allow them to come up with a unified initiative.
Each PC member then presented his own vision in the manner he chose, without any comment or response from the other houses or councils or ruling political forces. This is perhaps because political activity declines during the month of Ramadan, as people in general, and elites in particular, are distracted and preoccupied with other matters during this month.
However, positions will not change even if initiatives are proposed outside of the holy month, for several reasons.
The first is awaiting the proposals of the advisory committee affiliated with the United Nations mission, as these provide some hope for producing acceptable and applicable outcomes.
The second is despair regarding the possibility of the parties in power agreeing on a way out of the crisis, as this would mean their exit from the scene and consequently the loss of their power and influence.
The third is a firm conviction that any initiative not adopted by the United Nations is useless, even if supported by influential international or regional parties in the Libyan crisis.
Presidential proposals and initiatives are not devoid of ideas that could actually put the country on the path to ending the crisis, if the intentions were purely for the nation. Returning to a popular referendum, as Menfi suggests, means deferring to the legitimate authority, and whatever it decides is what should be implemented.
Breaking up centralization through a system of regions and governorates, as Al-Koni believes, will ease the burden on the capital by distributing powers and wealth among the regions and governorates.
This would eliminate the possibility of coups and the seizure of power by controlling the capital. Adopting a tripartite presidential council, as Al-Lafi believes, would prevent the concentration of power in a single president, who might deviate from the path of authoritarian decision-making and end any participation in it.
To be fair, what is noticeable about all presidential initiatives, and other initiatives, including those of the United Nations, is that there is no initiative that approaches a referendum on the draft constitution, which, in my opinion, is the most likely path to writing the final chapter of the transitional phase.
Even if it does not secure a two-thirds majority in the first round, the way forward is clear in the Constitutional Declaration. It will be returned to the Committee of Sixty to make the required amendments to the rejected or reserved articles, and then it will be put to a referendum again in a second round.
There are various reasons for objecting to the draft constitution, some of which are external, because the constitution being voted on constitutes the solid foundation for independence. Some regional and international powers do not want this independence and believe that the state of chaos and division serves their interests better. It is unfortunate that some local political parties, for other reasons, are aligning themselves with obstructing the constitutional process.
Ignoring the constitutional process and pursuing other initiatives is not in the interest of the nation and its future, but rather serves political parties that insist on remaining in power to serve their own personal agendas, indifferent to the fact that such insistence further compromises the nation’s remaining unity and sovereignty.
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