Libyan lawmakers confirmed a newly appointed interim Government on Wednesday, in the hopes it will help unify the divided, war-wrecked North African country, and shepherd it through to elections at the end of the year.
“This is a historic day,” declared parliament speaker Aguila Saleh at the end of the voting session that took place amid international pressure on Libya's stakeholders to support a roadmap brokered in a U.N.-led process late last year.
He said 132 lawmakers approved the government of Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, which replaces two rival administrations — one based in the country's east and another in the west — that have been ruling Libya for years.
Dbeibah, a powerful businessman from the western city of Misrata, was appointed last month to lead the executive branch of an interim government that also includes a three-member Presidential Council chaired by Mohammad Younes Menfi, a Libyan diplomat from the country's east.
Their appointment caped months of U.N.-brokered multi-track talks that set a political roadmap to hold parliamentary and presidential elections on December 24, a date Dbeibah pledged to respect following his confirmation.