Libya State Council approves changes to executive panel

By Walid Abdullah

TRIPOLI (AA) - Libya’s Supreme State Council (SSC) has conditionally voted in favor of a draft proposal to modify a Presidential Council affiliated with the country’s UN-backed unity government.

Submitted by eastern Libya’s Tobruk-based parliament, the proposal calls for the election -- by both parliament and the SSC -- of a new Presidential Council that would include a president along with two deputies.

In a Tuesday statement carried on its Facebook page, the SCC said that, under the proposal, the names of newly-elected Presidential Council members would be included in a constitutional declaration issued a week after their election.

The statement added that a majority of SCC members had voted in favor of the Tobruk-based assembly’s proposal.

The SCC will now hold discussions with the Tobruk assembly before the latter grants the proposal its final approval.

Libya has remained dogged by turmoil since 2011 when a bloody NATO-backed uprising led to the ouster and death of long-serving President Muammar Gaddafi after more than four decades in power.

Since then, Libya’s stark political divisions have yielded two rival seats of power -- one in Tobruk and another in capital Tripoli -- along with a host of armed groups of differing loyalties.