Libyan expectations are high and candidates are beginning to express interest in running for the elections scheduled for December this year.
These have been delayed three years following a military campaign on the capital Tripoli by renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar’s Tobruk-based government in the east.
The new interim Government of National Unity (GNU) is a provisional government body that was sworn in on March 15. It was tasked to lead the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to presidential and parliamentary elections later this year.
Although many Libyans are eager to take to the polls, the country’s ethnic minorities risk being overlooked in the electoral process.
These include the Amazigh, Tuareg, and Tebu. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is unable to provide an exact number of stateless individuals in the country, but the percentage of undocumented people remains high. Many are unable to acquire citizenship or other forms of documentation that would allow them to vote on both the elections and a possible constitution.
By the time of Libya’s independence in 1951, numerous nomadic non-Arab communities had settled in the country. But unlike Arab Libyans, many of these ethnic minorities suffered from discriminatory laws that sidelined them from society.
Mohammed A’Sunoussy, a member of the National Tebu Assembly, says: “Following Libya’s independence, the government took steps to register and issue civil documentation to the Libyan population … But there was little effort to reach out to Tebu in the desert. As a result, many Tebu remained without any documentation at this time.”
Some were also stripped of their Libyan citizenship after the International Criminal Court ruled the mineral-rich Aouzou strip in the south should be returned to Chad. Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi issued a decree stating any documentation issued in the strip should be revoked and, as a result, many Tebu have been unable to obtain documentation since.