World leaders said during Friday’s Paris conference on Libya that they would push for sanctions against anyone who disrupts the country’s political transition and electoral process.
Powers in Paris decided “that individuals or entities, inside or outside of Libya, who might attempt to obstruct, undermine, manipulate or falsify the electoral process and the political transition” could face sanctions.
However, big disputes remain over the vote intended to cement the country’s transition after its decade-old conflict.
The meeting in Paris aimed at strengthening international support for the planned December 24 elections and efforts to remove foreign forces from Libya.
The elections are a key element of an UN-backed peace process to end the conflict which ravaged Libya since ousting former leader Muammar Gaddafi.
In early October, Libya’s legislative elections were deferred until January.
Though the international community stressed on both votes to happen simultaneously on December 24, world leaders said on Friday they backed an electoral process “starting” on that day.
But with six weeks to go, the votes for a new president and parliament remain in doubt as disputes between rival Libyan factions continue over the electoral schedule and conditions to run.
Interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Al-Dbeibah said during the meeting that he had stressed urgent changes to the electoral rules that rival factions are tussling over, as Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said it was essential an agreement is made “not in the coming weeks, but in the coming days.”
World leaders backed an “inclusive” process, which in the context of the Libyan elections, means allowing all candidates to run, including divisive factional leaders.
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