The UN deal calls for a presidential council to lead a unified government, but hard-liners in both factions reject it and questions remain about how it will be implemented in a country where rival armed brigades hold the key to power, Reuters reported on Friday.
Chants of “Libya! Libya!” erupted as representatives from both parliaments signed the accord along with local councils and political parties in the Moroccan coastal town of Skhirat, after more than a year of hard-scrabble negotiations.
“The doors remain wide open to those who are not here today,” UN envoy Martin Kobler said at the ceremony attended by regional foreign ministers. “The signing of the political agreement is only the first step.”
Under the deal, a nine-member presidential council will form a government with the current, eastern-based House of Representatives as the main legislative and a State Council as a second consultative chamber. The presidential council will name a new government in a month and a UN Security Council resolution will endorse it.
Four years after Moammar Gadhafi’s fall, Libya is still deeply fractured, with a self-declared government in Tripoli and an internationally recognized one in the east – each backed by coalitions of former rebels and militias.