Ahmad 
The commander-in-chief of the Libyan army, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, said that the political track has been given too much to reach its goal of holding presidential and parliamentary elections.
This came in a speech on Thursday, during the celebration of the tenth anniversary of “Operation Dignity” in Benghazi, in the presence of Speaker of the House of Representatives Aguila Saleh and a number of military and political leaders in the Eastern Province.
“Despite major achievements at the military and security levels, and in the areas of development and construction, the political track has remained stagnant, if not regressive, with meetings followed by meetings, delegations going and coming, loud statements followed by louder statements, and outputs stuffed with lies and empty promises, which do not fatten or sing from hunger,” Haftar said.
“We believe that we have given this path of opportunities too much, to reach its goal of holding presidential and parliamentary elections, in which the people have the final say,” Haftar added.
“This is a very carefully planned approach, so that the situation remains as it is, and precious time passes without making any progress,” Haftar said.
Haftar pointed out that what he called “extremists who are enemies of freedom and democracy, who dream of installing themselves as guardians of the people, have sworn with the strongest faith that the Field Marshal will only run on their corpses”, considering this evidence of “recognition of failure and popular rejection of them”.
Haftar continued: “They fear the elections, because democracy will throw them out of the circle of history, and their argument in this is that we are military, yes, we are military in the battlefields, but we are civilians to the core in the fields of construction and reconstruction, and in the service of the citizen and providing his requirements to live in dignity.”
Haftar continued: “We are civilians with our belief in democracy and the peaceful exchange of power, and we have never objected to a Libyan citizen who sees himself as competent to be a candidate for the presidency or others, and civilians with our support for all initiatives based on holding fair and transparent elections, and with our belief that the decision is for the people, and the Fund is the arbiter between the candidates.”
It is noteworthy that the political scene in Libya is witnessing a stalemate, in light of the failure of the initiative of the resigned UN envoy Abdullah Batili, to bring the main parties to a dialogue table to resolve controversial items related to electoral laws.
The Speaker of the Libyan House of Representatives meets with the French Ambassador to discuss bilateral relations