Former NTC head unveils plan to regain stability

By Ashraf Abdul-Wahab.

Tripoli, 7 January 2014:

Former National Transitional Council (NTC) chairman, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, has announced  a roadmap for reconciliation between . . .[restrict]different political and minority groups in the country and a grand scheme to regain stability while a constitution is written.

Speaking at a press conference for the National Dialogue Group, Jalil said yesterday  that if current political trends continue, confrontation between Libyans along regional and tribal lines would be inevitable. He added that both the NTC and Congress in their turn had failed to move away from centralisation, to the detriment of local and municipal bodies.

The former NTC head told reporters that the greatest challenge facing Libya at the moment was the building up of state institutions, particularly the police and army. He said that the Libyan people were tired of autocracy. Tensions could not be ended by leaders with no political vision. Jalil also voiced concerns over the future of the 60-member Committee which he felt would become bogged down in political issues, and diverted from the task of writing the constitution.

The centrepiece of the roadmap put forward by the National Dialogue Group was the formation of a ‘Supreme Council for the State’, composed six members. Jalil said these members should be the President of the Supreme Court, a general commander of the Libyan army, a position created through the merging of the posts of Defence Minister and Army Chief of Staff, three members of Congress from the three regions and finally one member to deal with issues of transitional justice. He also advocated that the spokeswoman for this supreme council should be the oldest female member of Congress.

The NDG’s plans also included initiatives such as cutting all pay for members of the GNC. They said that they believed that  under the supervision of such a Supreme Council for the State, that the constitution would be written in a period of no more than three months, with two months needed for a referendum.

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