Libya Election Body Says It Is Ready for 2026 Presidential Vote
Libya’s election authority said Sunday it is fully prepared to run long-delayed presidential polls as early as March 2026, if the country’s rival leaders and security forces can agree on funding, security, and final voting rules. In a statement posted on Facebook, the High National Elections Commission said recent municipal council votes have given it the capacity to manage presidential and parliamentary elections and to return to the ballot box to end years of division.
Preliminary planning foresees a voting window that could open in early March 2026 and stretch to mid-April, but the commission said that timetable depends on guaranteed funding, countrywide security plans, and a clear mechanism for running elections in a nation still split between two governments.
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The body urged the UN Support Mission in Libya to focus on brokering an agreement over disputed changes to electoral laws so it can publish regulations and procedures. The commission stressed that any settlement must come from Libyans themselves and warned that the country cannot be built through foreign interventions or initiatives shaped by external or regional interests.
The announcement followed a request on Friday from Aguila Saleh, speaker of the eastern-based House of Representatives, who asked the commission to start preparing presidential elections. It also comes after protests in cities in eastern and southern Libya where demonstrators demanded a presidential vote to end the political stalemate.
Libya has been unstable since the 2011 overthrow of longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi, with cycles of conflict, foreign involvement, and an aborted 2021 election. Power remains divided between the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity led by Abdul Hamid Dbeibah and an eastern administration appointed by the House of Representatives and headed by Osama Hammad.
