Libya's Islamist-backed parliament dismisses prime minister

Tripoli, April 1: Libya’s Islamist-backed parliament dismissed Prime Minister Omar al-Hasi on Tuesday, media reported citing a parliamentary source. The Tripoli-based General tiol Congress (GNC) made the decision after a vote and assigned Khalifa al-Gauil the role of conducting government businesses until a new prime minister was chosen, the GNC announced, according to a Xinhua report. Libya has been witnessing political instability since 2011, when the intertiol community and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (TO) forces contributed to overthrow the dictatorial regime of Muammar Gaddafi. Following Gaddafi’s ouster, two rival parliaments emerged in Libya — the secular and intertiolly-recognised House of Representatives, based in the city of Tobruk and the Tripoli-based and Islamist-backed GNC, which is not recognised by foreign governments. A parliamentary spokesman said that 74 of the 85 members of the Tripoli parliament who attended Tuesday’s session voted to replace al-Hasi, as a “first step” towards forming a unity government with the Tobruk-based government, adding that al-Hasi’s dismissal was requested by 14 ministers of the Tripoli parliament, according to the Spanish news agency Efe. (IANS)