Libya’s political rivals given one month to approve 4+4 deal, UN says

TRIPOLI – Libya’s House of Representatives and High Council of State have one month to approve an agreement reached by a small political dialogue committee, United Nations deputy special representative Stephanie Koury said, as the UN seeks to revive a stalled political process and pave the way for national elections.

Koury said the UN mission had sent the agreement to the leaderships of both institutions and that the one-month period would begin from the date it was signed.

The agreement, known as 4+4, is intended to provide a possible entry point for moving Libya’s political process forward after years of institutional division and disagreement over the rules governing the transition and elections.

The UN mission sees the agreement as containing steps linked to the roadmap it launched in August 2025, particularly efforts to reorganise state institutions and establish the legal framework needed for elections.

Koury said the agreement sought to address several issues that had prevented Libya from moving towards national elections, adding that approval by both the House of Representatives and the High Council of State would be an important stage before discussions could begin on subsequent steps.

The UN official said the mission had also held individual discussions with members of both institutions and that those contacts had shown support for the agreement.

But sending the deal to Libya’s two rival political institutions places it before a new political test, after years of disputes between them over the management of the transitional period and the conditions for holding elections.

The key challenge will be whether the two bodies are prepared to turn an understanding reached by a smaller group of participants into a political and institutional commitment. Disagreements over how individual provisions should be interpreted or the order in which they should be implemented could revive the paralysis that has repeatedly stalled Libya’s political process.

The agreement also faces the challenge of winning broader acceptance among Libya’s competing political and institutional forces. An understanding reached by a small dialogue committee does not in itself resolve disputes among actors with political, institutional and security influence on the ground.

The issue is particularly important because the UN’s stated end goal for its roadmap is national elections. Disputes over the legal framework or institutions overseeing the electoral process could therefore threaten to derail the wider political track.

Khoury said the House of Representatives and the High Council of State were required to approve the agreement within a month of its signing before the process could move to discussions on the next step.

She warned that if the two institutions failed to approve the agreement, the UN mission would resort to “other mechanisms” to adopt it, signalling that the United Nations did not want the deal to become hostage to disputes between Libya’s political institutions.

Any move to use alternatives to approval by the two institutions could itself generate debate over the legitimacy and acceptability of those mechanisms, however, particularly if Libyan parties viewed them as bypassing established political bodies.

Koury also stressed the role of Libyans themselves in pressing for implementation of the UN roadmap, while acknowledging the difficulty of asking citizens to mobilise politically amid worsening daily pressures.

She pointed to shortages of fuel, power cuts and rising prices as factors that could limit public engagement, linking the success of the political process to improvements in living conditions. Elections, she said, require a social and political environment capable of supporting them.

That puts the 4+4 process against a broader set of challenges. Elections require not only agreement among political elites, but also institutions capable of implementing their outcome, a stable security environment and acceptance by competing factions of the rules of the political process and its results.

Koury also acknowledged the role of foreign countries that have interests and relationships with Libya’s rival authorities, while stressing that the UN roadmap had the backing of the Security Council, which she described as the basis for the mission’s work.

The international dimension adds another layer to efforts to implement the agreement, as foreign powers with interests and influence in Libya could affect the ability of local actors to reach and sustain a political settlement.

For the UN mission, the one-month deadline therefore represents both an opportunity to maintain momentum behind the roadmap and a test of whether Libya’s divided political institutions are willing to move from an agreement among dialogue participants towards implementation.

The mission says institutional restructuring and completion of the legal framework are not ends in themselves but steps towards national elections intended to end Libya’s political division.

Approval by the two institutions would be only the first stage, with implementation of the agreement, institutional unification and acceptance of electoral rules and results presenting further tests for the political process.