Protesters stormed the Libyan parliament in the eastern city of Tobruk and set fire to parts of it, fueling anger at deteriorating living conditions and months of political blockade.
Black smoke erupted as men burned tires and set cars on fire during Friday’s incident after a protester smashed the enclosure door with an excavator and others attacked the walls with construction tools, they reported. local media.
The building was empty as Friday falls on the weekend in Libya.
The Libyan House of Representatives is based in Tobruk, more than 600 miles (1,000 km) east of the capital, Tripoli, from an east-west schism in 2014 that occurred three years after a popular revolution overthrew dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
A separate legislature, formally known as the High Council of State, is based in Tripoli, as the oil-rich North African country remains divided between rival administrations fighting for control.
Libya, suffocating with the summer heat, has endured days of power cuts, a situation exacerbated by the blockade of major oil facilities amid entrenched political rivalries.
“We want the lights to work,” chanted protesters, some of whom waved the green flags of the Gaddafi regime.
Parliament condemned the “acts of vandalism and burning” of its headquarters.
Meanwhile, Tripoli-based caretaker Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah expressed support for the protesters’ concerns in a Twitter message.
The two governments have been fighting for power in Libya for months: one based in Tripoli, led by Dbeibah, and the other led by former Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha, appointed by parliament and backed by the warlord. from the east. Khalifa Haftar.
The presidential and parliamentary elections, initially scheduled for last December, were intended to place a UN-led peace process after the end of the last major round of violence in 2020.
However, the vote was never held due to several controversial candidacies and deep disagreements over the legal basis of the ballot boxes between rival centers of power.
The United Nations said on Thursday that talks between Libyan rival institutions to break the deadlock had failed to resolve key differences.
Parliament Speaker Aguila Saleh and Higher State Council President Khaled al-Mishri met at the UN in Geneva for three days of talks to discuss a draft constitutional framework for the elections.
While some progress has been made, it was not enough to move towards the election, with both parties still disagreeing on who could run in the presidential vote, the UN envoy to Libya said. , Stephanie Williams.
On Saturday, Williams condemned the assault on headquarters: “The right of people to protest peacefully must be respected and protected, but riots and acts of vandalism such as the assault on the House of Representatives yesterday in the afternoons in Tobruk are totally unacceptable. “
The prospect of elections seems as distant as since parliament appointed Bashagha, arguing that Dbeibah’s term had expired.
After Bashagha was unable to enter Tripoli in May, the rival administration took office further east, in Sirte, Gaddafi’s coastal city.
There have been repeated skirmishes between armed groups in Tripoli, which has sparked fears of a return to large-scale conflict.
Protesters gathered on Friday in other cities, including Tripoli, where protesters displayed scratched images of Dbeibah and Bashagha.
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“Popular protests have erupted across Libya in exasperation over the collapse of the quality of life, the entire political class that manufactured it and the UN that allowed them to deliver on the promised change,” wrote Tarek Megerisi, of European Council on External Relations, on Twitter.
“Things are rising fast and the answer will define Libya’s summer.”
On Thursday, Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) announced losses of more than $ 3.5 billion (£ 2.9 billion) in closures and declared greater strength in some places, a move that freed it from contractual obligations to due to circumstances beyond its control.
The NOC said production “dropped sharply” and exports had fallen between 365,000 and 409,000 barrels a day, a loss of 865,000 barrels a day compared to the pre-April average.
Haftar forces control major oil facilities.
The drop in gas production has contributed to the chronic power cuts in Libya, which have lasted up to 12 hours a day.