A Nov. 6 court ruling further intensified the already deep political crisis in Libya that has gripped the North African oil-rich nation since August, when a coalition of Islamist militias overran Tripoli. The verdict effectively annulled the country’s elected legislature, the Council of Representatives, the body recognized by the United Nations and the international community since its election in June. Unable to convene in either Tripoli or Benghazi for security reasons, the parliament moved to Tobruk in eastern Libya close to the Egyptian border. More than a dozen Islamist-leaning members boycotted the chamber and chose to challenge its legality.
This means the UN-brokered initiative to bring together parliamentarians and their boycotting colleagues for a compromise is dead. The initiative was launched in September by Bernardino Leon, the UN representative to Libya, with the hope of bringing the two sides together to reach some sort of compromise in which a coalition government could be set up until elections can be held. Hope has faded, and Libya's politics further complicated in the country plagued by factional fighting and well-armed militias that have recognized no central government after NATO-backed rebels toppled the regime of Moammar Gadhafi in October 2011.