By Libya Herald reporters.
Tunis, 12 October 2015:
It appears that the Constitutional Drafting Assembly is not going to hit its 20 October . . .[restrict]deadline to produce a final draft, as its wrap-up session in Ghadames has attracted insufficient members.
Not only this but despite CDA president Ali Tarhouni telling the Libya Herald last month that the draft was virtually a done deal, with but a single one of the 211 articles on which to reach agreement, CDA members appear to be revisiting settled issues.
There has reportedly been an angry debate over whether the country should have one or two capitals. Members from Cyrenaica have been arguing that the draft must include Tripoli and Benghazi, as it was in the Article 188 of the 1951 constitution of 1951, amended in 1963.
Given that any change must be endorsed by two-thirds of the 60 CDA members, it is clear that the inquorate Ghadames’ meeting, far from being the ultimate step, has become a talking shop. Indeed, it may be that because the meeting has turned out to have insufficient members, those who travelled to Ghadames have felt emboldened to reopen settled issues that rankled.
CDA member Mohammed Tumi told this newspaper this evening that he believed that it would now be impossible to hit the 20 October completion date. “The 44 members here in Ghadames are enough to make the meeting legal but not enough for a binding decision. We have therefore postponed the vote”.
Tumi said that CDA members would be returning to their base in the Beida. This is in the impressive old parliament where, with the exception of consultative tours, the assembly has done most of its work since June 2014.
Tumi insisted however that what the members had before them was still a draft, adding “I am still optimistic and I am definitely more optimistic than I used to be”. [/restrict]
