Libya’s eastern-based parliament voted on Tuesday to replace Fathi Bashagha as prime minister amid signs of shifting alliances in Libya’s political moving sands.
The parliament replaced Bashagha with his finance minister Osama Hamad, parliament spokesman Abdullah Belhaiq said.
The decision was announced a few hours after Bashagha published his resignation and designated his deputy, Ali al-Qatrani, to assume his duties.
The parliament said Bashagha will now face an investigation but did not specify the charges that could be brought against him.
Bashagha remained silent while reports circulated about disagreements between him and a number of MPs on financial issues.
Bashagha is said to have written to the parliament earlier on Tuesday saying he was handing his duties over to Qatrani, without saying whether or when he planned to resume this activities. A source close to him claimed Bashagha was taking a personal leave.
In March of last year, Bashagha had taken the oath of office before parliament and began exercising his duties from Sirte after being tasked with forming a new government.
Parliament intended Bashagha to replace Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah after deciding that the Tripoli-based premier’s term in office had ended. But Dbeibah refused to step down saying that he would hand over power only to “an elected government.”
Although backed by parliament and the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, Bashagha lacked real powers.
His government’s margin of manoeuvre was in particular limited by budget constraints. Bashagha said in January that the Libyan Central Bank allocated to his cabinet only about 330 million US dollars.
Analysts believe a row subsequently erupted between Bashagha and members of parliament over the financial issue. According to MP Issam al-Jahani the decision to remove Bashagha was triggered by the parliamentarians’ belief that he failed to fulfill any of expectations that underlied his appointment in the first place.
Bashagha’s alliance with the authorities in the east led to the serious atrophy of his support base in the western region. Many people there considered his reconciliation with Haftar and Speaker of Parliament Aguila Saleh a “betrayal of the martyrs” as they referred to those killed in battles fought by the LNA against militias and militant groups in Benghazi and Tripoli.
Observers at the time thought Haftar and Saleh used Bashagha as a pressure card against Dbeibah to reap certain benefits, such as the removal of Mustafa Sanallah from his position as head of the National Oil Corporation (NOC) and his replacement by former central bank governor Farhat Bengdara, as part of a deal between Haftar and Dbeibah that included the payment of the army’s debts.
Increasingly, it became clear that Bashagha’s mission had ended, from the perspective of Haftar and Aguila Saleh. It will be difficult now for Bashagha, however, to return to the political scene after having burnt all his bridges with former allies in the western region.
Cairo meeting
Over the last few days, Rumours have circulated about Bashagha joining the Dbeibah camp. But such rumours were discounted after the emergence of reports about a forthcoming meeting in Cairo between representatives of Dbeibah and Haftar.
According to these reports, a meeting will be held in Cairo between security and military leaders from the western region and others from the eastern part of the country, including Saddam Haftar (Haftar’s son) and his brother Belkasim as well as MP Hatem Al-Araibi, and Osama Hamad, who is now assuming the previous duties of Bashagha.
The Cairo meeting is expected to discuss the possibility of reaching an agreement with the Dbeibah government that will include the appointment of new cabinet ministers in such portfolios as finance, foreign affairs, the interior and defence.
The reports about the Cairo meeting seem to have irked the State Council chairman Khaled Al-Mishri who virulently criticised the Parliament’s decision to dismiss Fathi Bashagha.
He said on Twitter that the parliament’s move to replace Bashagha is a “political absurdity” and took place in “suspicious circumstances.”
Libya has had little peace since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising against Muammar Gadhafi. Moreover, it split in 2014 between warring eastern and western factions, though major fighting has been paused since a ceasefire in 2020.
Dbeibah’s government was installed through a UN-backed process in 2021 that was aimed at holding elections that year, but the vote was cancelled amid disputes over the rules.
Diplomacy is now focused on bringing the parliament and a consultative body, the State Council, to agree on rules that would allow an election to take place.
However, senior figures in the parliament have pushed for a new interim government before any election, a move their opponents see as a delaying tactic to put off a vote and hang onto their positions.
