Libyan Prime Minister faces 'real possibility' of dismissal in tough confidence vote later today
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• The National Congress will reportedly vote on Sunday whether to dismiss Prime Minister-designate Mustafa Abushagur, after his cabinet nominees faced 'a disastrous reception' earlier this week.
• 120 votes will be required to dismiss the PM, while Libya Herald reports that 116 Congress members are currently planning to vote against him.
• After protracted and difficult negotiations, Abushagur's cabinet faced several criticisms, such as for not including any ministers from the liberal NFA, the largest bloc in Congress.
• Abushagur is to present a revised list of nominees later today, but he is thought to have already been discredited by the affair.
[url]http://www.libyaherald.com/?p=15690[/url]
[quote=Libya Herald]Mustafa Abushagur faces the real possibility of being sacked by the National Congress at a vote to be held later today, the Libya Herald has learned.
The prime minister-elect has been engulfed in crisis since his proposed government met with a disastrous reception from Congress members on Wednesday.
Well-placed sources both inside and outside of the 200-member body have said that 116 Congress and women will vote to remove Abushagur at a meeting tomorrow, having decided that 120 votes will be needed to pass the motion.
“Abushagur has lost credibility on all sides”, said one independent Congressman, who requested not to be named. “He cannot survive”.
Yesterday evening, the Libya Herald witnessed a National Forces Alliance member emerge from a meeting at Tripoli’s Corinthia Hotel only to exclaim: “Tomorrow morning, Abushagur will be out”, before kicking an imagined object out of the door and making a spitting gesture.
The prime minister-elect was forced to withdraw his entire cabinet overnight on Wednesday, a matter of hours after having proposed it for Congressional approval.
Abushagur is due to submit a revised cabinet later today, but it is reckoned that this new list will not succeed in placating Congress members who have already resolved to vote for his dismissal.
A copy circulating yesterday purported to show that 11 names had been changed, the ministers of interior, finance, defence, higher education, health, oil, social affairs, labour, martyrs, electricity and the deputy prime minister.
A twelfth alteration was the inclusion of a foreign minister, with Abushagur having originally planned to assume that responsibility in addition to being prime minister until a suitable candidate was found.
Members of the NFA were amongst the first to vent their outrage at the initial line-up, after it emerged that not a single one of the nine names proposed by Mahmoud Jibril had been included.
A Congress source told this paper on Wednesday that when NFA Congressman Ibrahim Al-Ghariani first saw the cabinet list, he tore the paper up and threw it at Abushagur in a fit of rage.
Feisal Krekshi, formerly the NFA General-Secretary, was included in the proposed cabinet, but only after he and some 15 to 20 alliance members broke from the NFA a few days earlier.
The group had chosen to support Abushagur’s efforts to form a government after negotiations between Jibril and the prime ministerial team stalled over the alliance chief’s reportedly unacceptable demands.
Numerous independent Congress members also expressed their anger with Abushagur for failing to consult with them during the negotiations, including several who had voted for him to become prime minister.
Several Congressmen told the Libya Herald that they opposed many names on the list on account of their ties to the former regime and considered others unqualified or else unknown to them altogether.
On Thursday, some 200 protesters from Zawia stormed the Congress, reportedly complaining that the proposed government did not include a single representative from the town.
It has subsequently been claimed, however, that the real source of anger was over the inclusion of Omar Aswad as Interior Minister who, it is alleged, was responsible for a number of deaths in the town under the former regime.
Having recognised the weakness of Abushagur’s position, it is said that even Muslim Brotherhood-linked Congress members have resolved to abandon him in an effort to find an acceptable alternative. Eight Brotherhood supporters were included in the original 28-member cabinet, the only group in Congress said to have been broadly satisfied with the result.
If Abushagur is sacked tomorrow Congress will need to find an alternative who will, in turn, have to repeat the process of attempting to select an acceptable cabinet, a process which could delay the formation of a new government by at least another month.[/quote]
Isn't he a former nasa employee? Poor guy, not even a few weeks into office and he's already in deep shit.
Whether it's him or Jibril or somebody else agreeable, there needs to be an executive at this crucial time; with the army about to assault Bani Walid, with a possible military operation in Sousa, with the militias being disbanded, with the constituent assembly still to-be-appointed
Honestly I hope they let him stay. Dismiss him if he fucks up, not before he's actually done anything.
That isn't how a confidence vote(correct me if that isn't what it is) should be, a confidence vote should trigger civilian elections and the parliament alone should not be able to dismiss a prime minister.
After reading this article, it seems to me that the PM made the mistake of putting together a practical cabinet, not a cabinet the people wanted to see. Maybe his cabinet exists out of the best people he saw fit for the job, but that's not going to prevent any emotional responses from people who fought a war for this. Both sides still need to learn what a democracy is all about I guess.
[QUOTE=Clavus;37940716]After reading this article, it seems to me that the PM made the mistake of putting together a practical cabinet, not a cabinet the people wanted to see. Maybe his cabinet exists out of the best people he saw fit for the job, but that's not going to prevent any emotional responses from people who fought a war for this. Both sides still need to learn what a democracy is all about I guess.[/QUOTE]
I think he needs to explain why he made the choices and why they are important to getting the country back on track. That or make sure there isnt enough votes to call a election or whatever.
Abushagur is speaking to Congress right now. I don't speak Arabic but people on Twitter are saying it's a very good speech. His first cabinet had 26 ministers and everyone said it was way too big. He is now detailing an 'emergency administration' of 10 ministers.
He might make it after all
[editline]7th October 2012[/editline]
[img]http://puu.sh/1ckcu[/img]
[editline]7th October 2012[/editline]
He finished his speech and got applause from Congress, a few members gave a standing ovation. For those who knew Arabic apparently his speech was like this
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq8CtJSQFL4[/media]
[editline]7th October 2012[/editline]
They are holding the confidence vote right now
I'd say the biggest issue is that a confidence vote can be held against a single person on the cabinet as opposed to the entire cabinet as is the norm in most nations.
It creates the situation for an extremely unstable cabinet. Another thing that depends is just how much of a margin the nonconfidence vote must carry. In a large number of nation's that's 3/5ths of the parliament (with usually only 1/2 needed for a vote of confidence)
EDIT
Just read it and they're at least keeping the standard 3/5ths for non confidence (120/200). Still nonconfidence for a single member is a bit odd.
[QUOTE=wraithcat;37948260]I'd say the biggest issue is that a confidence vote can be held against a single person on the cabinet as opposed to the entire cabinet as is the norm in most nations.
It creates the situation for an extremely unstable cabinet. Another thing that depends is just how much of a margin the nonconfidence vote must carry. In a large number of nation's that's 3/5ths of the parliament (with usually only 1/2 needed for a vote of confidence)
EDIT
Just read it and they're at least keeping the standard 3/5ths for non confidence (120/200). Still nonconfidence for a single member is a bit odd.[/QUOTE]
I think when they wrote the interim constitution they wanted to give the legislature lots of power to ensure a couple of guys couldn't get into government and fuck up democracy's shit, but in retrospect they went too far
[QUOTE=smurfy;37948335]I think when they wrote the interim constitution they wanted to give the legislature lots of power to ensure a couple of guys couldn't get into government and fuck up democracy's shit, but in retrospect they went too far[/QUOTE]
Though that's bad too, I think it's the lesser of two evils.
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