Tobruk, a city in eastern Libya, has been overrun by protesters who have set fire to a portion of the parliament.
As the protesters burnt tyres outside, images released online showed huge columns of smoke.
Other Libyan cities have seen protests about the ongoing power outages, increased costs, and the impasse in politics.
Protesters demanded elections in Tripoli, the capital, where a rival government is in power.
Their demand was supported by Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, the leader of the interim unity administration, who asserted that all of the nation’s institutions needed to be altered.
talks in Geneva last year that were mediated by the UN, Dbeibeh was appointed. He was tasked with guiding the transitional government through elections, but that process came to an abrupt stop late last year due to disagreements about the Protesters electoral process, including the legality of his own candidacy. He reportedly survived an assassination attempt earlier this year, according to his authorities.
Libya’s eastern parliament chose Bashaga to be the nation’s leader after the election was delayed in December.
Bashaga accuses Dbeibah of abdicating after the vote was postponed, while Dbeibah rejects Bashaga’s claim to be the premier.
The Protesters violence begins a day after Geneva discussions facilitated by the UN that were meant to prepare for a vote concluded with little success.
Protesters Stalemate is not resolved through negotiation
Since months, there have been two competing governments battling for control: one in Tripoli, headed by temporary Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, and another, sponsored by Khalifa Hifter, a powerful leader in the east, and led by former Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha.
A U.N.-led peace process was to come to an end in 2020 with the holding of presidential and parliamentary elections, which were initially scheduled for December of last year.
However, the election was never held due to a number of contentious candidates and significant arguments regarding the legitimacy of the polls between rival power centres in the east and west.
According to the UN, attempts to break the impasse through negotiations between the competing Libyan institutions on Thursday were unsuccessful.
Al-Wasat claimed that protests occurred earlier on Friday in other cities as well. Several hundred people gathered in the main plaza of Tripoli, the nation’s capital, in the west of the country, to protest the presence of armed militias and call for cheaper bread and better power.
Images from the protest in Tobruk, in the east of the country, showed a demonstrator operating a bulldozer that had managed to blast through a portion of a gate, facilitating easier access for other protesters to the parliament building. Office documents were thrown into the air by other protesters, some of whom were waving the green flags of the Gaddafi dictatorship
Since Col. Muammar Gaddafi, the country’s longtime leader, was overthrown in an uprising supported by NATO in 2011, Libya has been in disarray.
The oil-rich nation, from where many of the thousands of migrants that journey to Europe depart, formerly enjoyed one of the finest standards of living in Africa, with free healthcare and free education.
But the stability that fueled its success has been destroyed, and conflict between opposing parties has erupted frequently in Tripoli.
The blockade of several oil facilities against the backdrop of political disputes Protesters has made Libya’s many days of power outages worse.
“We must acknowledge our failure and promptly retire from the political arena,” said lawmaker Balkheir Alshaab on Libyan channel Al-Ahrar.
Since an east-west split occurred in 2014 as a result of the uprising that ousted longstanding leader Muammar Gaddafi three years earlier, the House of Representatives, or parliament, of Libya has been situated in Tobruk, hundreds of kilometres east of the capital Tripoli.
Al-Wasat, a Libyan news outlet, said that the Tobruk demonstrators wanted the parliament dissolved and new elections. The unfavourable living circumstances in the nation were also a focus of the protests at the same time.
“Scaling up rapidly”
Since the House of Representatives, elected in 2014, selected Bashagha, claiming that Dbeibah’s term had expired, the possibility of elections seems as remote as it has ever been.
There have been numerous clashes between armed groups in Tripoli over the past few weeks, raising concerns about the possibility of another major conflict.
Other Libyan cities saw protests on Friday, including Tripoli, where demonstrators carried pictures of Dbeibah and Bashagha with their names crossed out.
According to analyst Tarek Megerisi of the European Council on Foreign Relations, “popular protests have erupted across Libya in disgust with a crumbling quality of life, the entire political elite who built it, and the U.N. who pampered them over delivering promised change.”
