Libyan election laws designed to obstruct polls: PM Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah

TRIPOLI: Libyan Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah said the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections face a major problem of "laws that are designed to obstruct the electoral process".

"The elections are going through a very big problem. The demand for the Libyan people to elect cannot be waived," Dbeibah addressed the gathering of youth and student organisations in the capital Tripoli.

He accused the House of Representatives (Parliament), which drafted the election laws, of obstructing the electoral process.

The prime minister stressed the need to hold elections based on "constitutional base and laws agreed upon by all".

Libya plans to hold general elections on December 24 this year, as part of a roadmap adopted by the UN-sponsored Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) with the aim to bring stability to Libya.

The House of Representatives in September approved the presidential election law, and approved the parliamentary election law in October.

However, the two laws spark controversy among some political parties that claim the laws were passed without "consensus" among the parties.

Candidates in the fray for the presidential election include Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the late ousted Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi; warlord Khalifa Haftar, who previously led an insurgency from his eastern base against the UN-backed government in Tripoli; Prime Minister al-Dbeibah and Parliament Speaker Aguila Saleh.