Protests have erupted in Libya in recent days; The House of Representatives in the eastern city of Tobruk was set on fire on Friday and hundreds of protesters in the capital Tripoli descended on the city center to denounce armed militias and rising prices of basic goods.
The protests came as Libya’s multiple political factions remained at odds over a constitutional framework and a roadmap for elections, as UN-backed talks in Cairo and Geneva between representatives of Tripoli’s Supreme Council of State and Tobruk’s House of Representatives failed to reach an agreement.
Insecurity has been exacerbated by an ongoing oil blockade initiated by factions seeking to oust the internationally recognized government in Tripoli and replace it with a rival government led by former interior minister Fathi Bashagha, based in Sirte.
“There are many reasons why the protesters decided to take to the streets in anger. But they can be summed up simply by the failure of politicians to reach a political agreement and their preference instead of fighting each other for power at the expense of ordinary citizens,” Libyan academic and writer Ahmed Mayouf told Al Jazeera.
“This failure has naturally led to a deterioration of living conditions everywhere, affecting even those citizens who are not very interested in politics.”
Libyan journalist Mustafa Feturi agreed, insisting that “the protests are against the current status quo in its entirety, and that includes both governments; [interim Prime Minister Abdul Hamid] Dbeiba is in Tripoli and Bashaga is in Sirte.
Feturi told Al Jazeera that “the main reason for the protests is the deterioration of living conditions in Libya, and in particular the constant power outages, the lack of job opportunities and the lack of any agreement on elections.”
Tripoli-based Libyan academic Yusuf Bahbaki, however, suggested that the reasons for the protests varied depending on the area in which they took place.
“There is a sense of frustration and growing complaints about unemployment issues in Tripoli which has fueled the protests [there] against the Dbeiba government,” he said.
“In Tobruk, the reasons are more political and have more to do with the presence of mercenaries and the politics of the House of Representatives, which prevented the elections from taking place.”
“Protests may escalate”
Libya has been wracked by instability and civil war since the ouster of longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
In 2021, a UN-backed national dialogue led to the formation of a new government led by Dbeibah on the basis that elections would be held in December of that year. However, the election was postponed indefinitely, leading to a dispute over the legitimacy of Dbeiba’s government.
In February 2022, the House of Representatives in Tobruk – backed by strongman Khalifa Haftar, who laid siege to the capital Tripoli in 2019 before being pushed back by Turkey’s military intervention – controversially appointed Bashagha as prime minister and tasked him with forming a government .
Yet Bashaga faced stiff resistance from armed militias linked to Dbeiba as he tried to enter Tripoli in May to install his government, prompting him to subsequently announce that he would take over from the city of Sirte.
Since then, supporters of Bashaga’s government have partially shut down oil facilities in the east in an attempt to pressure Dbeiba’s government to step down. Bashaga told Reuters that the oil blockade “will probably end if the central bank provides the funds for the budget that parliament has approved [for his government]”.
The oil blockade has exacerbated the problem of blackouts in Libya, one of the main complaints of the protesters who recently took to the streets.
Tripoli-based Libyan academic Yusuf Bahbaki told Al Jazeera that “power cuts last for hours during the day and queues at gas stations are very long. This is apart from rising inflation and rising prices.”
Still, Bahbaki said the protests had not yet reached a level where they could force change.
“Protests may escalate. That’s certainly a possibility,” he said.
“However, it is still limited to some of the youth, and the burning of the House of Representatives building in Tobruk and the blocking of roads by protesters and other disruptive actions may have influenced the decision of others to join these protests.”
Bahbaki added: “Libyans are currently not yet at the stage where they are ready to take to the streets in large numbers, despite deteriorating living conditions.”
Mayouf said the protests were likely to continue to escalate.
“As far as the protesters are concerned, there is no difference between the Debeiba government and that of Bashaga in terms of their contribution to the deterioration of living conditions. This makes it difficult for one side to use the protests against the other,” he said.
“Yet that won’t stop them from trying to ride the wave and try to build a narrative that suggests they stand by the protests against ‘the other side.’
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