Stephanie Khoury.. The new United Nations card to advance the political process in Libya

Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed – Osama Ali
The UN envoy to Libya, Abdullah Batili, welcomed the appointment of American Stephanie Khoury, deputy for political affairs in the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, expressing his aspiration to work with her “to advance the political process in Libya.”

This came in a blog post written by Batelli on his account on the “X” platform after the United Nations announced the decision of its Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, yesterday, Friday, to appoint Stephanie Khoury as Deputy Special Representative for Political Affairs in the UN mission in Libya.

Khoury’s appointment came as a successor to former Zimbabwean diplomat Raisidun Zenenga, who had served as Deputy Political Affairs at the mission since December 2022.

The United Nations website stated that Khoury held many positions related to conflict management and peacebuilding in the Middle East for 30 years, including 15 in the countries of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Libya and Yemen, the last of which was the position of Director of Political Affairs in the United Nations Transitional Assistance Mission in Sudan, in addition to She has worked as a research fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies and with NGOs, including Search for Common Ground.

Khoury has not yet assumed her position in Libya, as she is likely to arrive in Libya within the current week. She is the second American to hold this position after her predecessor, Stephanie Williams, who held the position during the term of former Lebanese envoy Ghassan Salame, before assuming the acting directorship of the mission after the resignation of Khoury. Salama in March 2020, as she supervised the organization of the political dialogue forum, which achieved the unification of executive authority through the Presidential Council and the National Unity Government after years of political division.

The appointment of Khoury as a new deputy for political affairs in the UN mission comes at a time when a severe political stalemate dominates the political process and Batelli’s efforts to move the crisis file and push it towards holding elections that have been postponed since the end of 2021 have faltered.

Batelli’s efforts to limit the political crisis taking place in the country to what he called the main leaders, namely the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, the Speaker of the Supreme Council, Mohamed Takala, the President of the Presidential Council, Mohamed Al-Manfi, and the Head of the National Unity Government, Abdel Hamid Al-Dabaiba, in addition to the commander of the eastern Libyan militias, Khalifa Haftar. Last November, he invited them to a five-year dialogue meeting in order to resolve the existing differences over the outcomes of the 6+6 committee regarding electoral laws, especially after the House of Representatives issued an updated version of the laws last October, while the State Council refused to issue it in its entirety. Updated, adhering to the version issued by the 6+6 Committee last June due to the finality and binding of its outcomes, as stipulated in the Constitutional Declaration under which the Committee was formed.

After the conditions for the candidacy of military personnel and those holding foreign nationalities for elections were the main points of disagreement in the electoral laws, the requirement for a unified government to supervise the elections in all the countries has entered the line of controversy and disagreements, as the House of Representatives insists on forming a new government, as stipulated in the updated version of the electoral laws. At a time when Dabaiba refuses to hand over power except to an elected authority, and demands fair electoral laws without excluding any party from the right to run for elections.
In his last briefing to members of the Security Council, Battelle attacked the main leaders whom he invited to a five-party dialogue meeting, accusing them of continuing to impose their conditions for joining the dialogue in order to maintain the status quo that suits them.

Following Batelli’s accusations, the Security Council issued a statement in which it affirmed its support for Batelli’s initiative for the five-party dialogue, and called on the main parties to respond to the initiative, while the Security Council threatened to punish those it described as obstructors of the elections, and a number of members of the State House of Representatives held a meeting described as consultative in Tunisia, and announced a sentence Among the agreements was the formation of a new unified government that would supervise the holding of elections.

But Batelli considered that the Tunis meeting “is not an alternative to a broader dialogue with greater participation and a more comprehensive agenda,” warning of “the disastrous consequences of unilateral initiatives that aim only to create new institutions without the cooperation and approval of all parties concerned,” calling on the leaders of the main parties to the necessity of dialogue without conditions. Advance.