BENGHAZI: Libya’s eastern-based parliament voted on Tuesday to replace Fathi Bashagha as prime minister, its spokesperson said, after he failed to take office in Tripoli where the incumbent Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah has refused to cede power.
The parliament assigned Bashagha’s finance minister Osama Hamad to take over his duties, parliament spokesperson Abdullah Belhaiq said, part of an apparent new push to oust Dbeibah and install a new government in Tripoli.
Bashagha was appointed in March 2022 but his efforts to enter Tripoli and take office ended in battles between factions aligned with him and others aligned with Dbeibah, and he has had to operate outside Tripoli with no control of state finances.
He wrote to the parliament earlier on Tuesday saying he was handing his duties over to his deputy Ali Qatrani, without saying whether or when he planned to resume them. A source close to him said Bashagha was taking a personal leave.
Votes and other steps announced by parliamentary authorities have sometimes later been denied by other members of the chamber who accuse the speaker Aguila Saleh of pushing through policies without proper procedure. Saleh has denied this.
Libya has had little peace since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, and it split in 2014 between warring eastern and western factions, though major fighting has been paused since a ceasefire in 2020..–Agencies
