Abdoulaye Bathily nominated to head UN mission in Libya
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is seeking to appoint Senegalese Abdoulaye Bathily as the new UN envoy to Libya.
Libyan diplomatic sources confirmed that Guterres nominated Bathily eight months after the resignation of former envoy Jan Kubiš last December and the non-renewal of the Secretary General’s adviser on Libya, Stephanie Williams, following the end of her term on July 31.
The UN Security Council is expected to hold a meeting within days to discuss the latest developments in the Libyan issue and to vote on the possible candidates to head the UN mission.
The UN support effort in Libya is currently led by Assistant Secretary-General of the UN Mission in Zimbabwe Raisedon Zenenga, amid a Security Council row over who heads the UN mission, which was renewed for three months at the end of July for the fourth time without a UN envoy.
Bathily and the UN experiences
In 2012, he was assigned to head a visiting UN delegation to assess the mission’s work.
Senegal has a wealth of UN work, having already been appointed in 2013 as deputy special representative to the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, special representative of the UN Secretary-General since 2014 in Central Africa, and head of the UN Regional Office for Central Africa.
In May 2015, he chaired the Bangui National Forum for National Reconciliation in the Central African Republic.
Bathily holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham and a PhD from Sheikh Anta Diop University and has many books and research on African history and politics. He is also a senior official in his country, having served as Minister of the Environment from 1993 to 1998 and Minister of Energy from 2000 to 2001.
Bathily was elected to parliament for several terms, ran for the first time in February 2007 and finished sixth with 2.21%, rejecting the results and challenging their validity, but his appeal was rejected by the Constitutional Council and detained by police and other opponents.
U.N. leadership vacuum
Williams left her post days ago, and the UN Security Council has been unsuccessful in appointing a new UN envoy to replace Jan Kubiš, who resigned last December.
Although Assistant Secretary-General of the UN Mission in Libya Raisedon Zenenga has been appointed to lead the mission on its behalf, experts say the UN effort in Libya is lacking, which could lead to a rapid escalation of events.
The UN mission in Libya is leading several negotiating tracks among Libyans, most notably the political, military, economic and constitutional tracks, with the aim of preparing for the presidential and parliamentary elections that were not held at the end of last year.
