Libya's Rival Factions Sign an Election Pact — But Do the Signatories Speak for Anyone?
On August 20, 2026, negotiators from Libya's two rival political camps signed an initial election agreement in Tunis, aiming to chart a path toward national elections and end a political division that has lasted since 2014. The agreement was brokered through the UN-backed "4+4 committee" — a negotiating body made up of four members from the House of Representatives, Libya's eastern-based parliament, and four from the High Council of State, a body linked to the Government of National Unity in Tripoli. The pact covers electoral laws and the restructuring of the national elections commission. Al Jazeera
The signing immediately drew pushback from within the very institutions the committee members claim to represent. Nuh al-Malati, a member of the High Council of State, said the council had not yet received an official copy of the agreement and that the changes do not enjoy consensus within the council. He claimed that the Government of National Unity-linked members of the 4+4 committee do not represent the council's official position. On the eastern side, Khalifa al-Daghari, a House of Representatives member, told Al Jazeera that lawmakers in his grouping did not participate in choosing the negotiating team members. He cited secrecy over the committee's proceedings and said the House cannot determine its position on the agreement before officially reviewing its text and outcomes. Mohamed al-Menfi, leader of the Tripoli-based presidential council, criticised the ambiguity surrounding the basis of the talks. Al Jazeera
The United Nations struck a more optimistic note. UN spokesman Mohammad al-Asadi called the pact an important step and a conclusion to the negotiations on all points under discussion. He said the document will be made publicly available after the final signing. Al Jazeera
Legal and political analysts have raised structural concerns about the pact's viability. Legal expert Al-Mahdi Kashbour said there appears to be a gap between the powers of the parties that signed the agreement and the institutions with the authority to implement it. Political analyst Elias Al-Barouni said the pact does not make any concrete plans for the country's elections, and that even if legal hurdles are cleared, the problem shifts to who governs Libya in the interim — the period between now and when elections are actually held. Al Jazeera
The broader context here is a decade of institutional fragmentation. Since 2014, Libya has been split between two rival administrations that separately control the east and west of the country. The 2015 Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) is the internationally recognised framework for Libya's transition. It established a collective executive — essentially a power-sharing leadership body — and mandated the unification of Libya's divided institutions and the implementation of security measures. The LPA has remained the reference point for subsequent diplomatic efforts, but its provisions have never been fully implemented. Security Council Report; Doha Institute
The Tunis pact is the latest in a series of diplomatic tracks that have gained momentum in 2026. In mid-June, the two rival factions claiming to be Libya's official government agreed to a power-sharing deal. A proposed "Libya Reunification Plan" shared with Reuters would set out a 36-month transitional power-sharing arrangement. Pakistan has been mediating between rival Libyan camps in an effort to broker a unity deal, adding a non-Western intermediary to a process previously dominated by UN facilitation. African Arguments; Reuters
The structural vulnerabilities identified by Kashbour and Al-Barouni point to a recurring pattern in Libyan peacemaking: negotiators produce agreements that outrun the institutional buy-in needed to make them real. The 4+4 committee format itself is a compromise, pairing delegates from two bodies whose legitimacy the other side has spent years contesting. When al-Malati says the committee's GNU-linked members do not represent the council's official position, and al-Daghari reports that House lawmakers had no say in selecting their negotiators, the question is not merely whether the pact will be ratified but whether the signatories held a mandate to negotiate in the first place.
Al-Barouni's observation about the interim governance gap is especially important. Even if the electoral law provisions survive review by both bodies, the pact leaves unresolved the question of who administers Libya during the transition to elections. The proposed 36-month transitional arrangement under the Libya Reunification Plan would need a governing structure to oversee it, and both the House of Representatives and the Government of National Unity have vested interests in shaping that structure. The 2015 LPA established a collective executive precisely to manage this tension, but its provisions were never fully put into practice.
The UN's characterisation of the pact as a "conclusion to the negotiations on all points under discussion" may prove diplomatically premature if internal dissent within both the High Council of State and the House of Representatives widens. The decision to withhold the full text until a final signing removes a layer of public scrutiny at precisely the moment when skepticism from rank-and-file lawmakers is surfacing. For an agreement whose legitimacy depends on acceptance by two institutions that have spent over a decade in opposition, the gap between a signed draft and a binding consensus remains the critical variable.
