On 3 April the House of Representatives in Libya voted to re-enter the political dialogue, providing certain conditions are met. The House withdrew from the internationally backed dialogue process in early March in response to the Benghazi Defence Forces’ (BDF) temporary takeover of the Es- Sider and Ras Lanuf oil export terminals.

The House has, however, clearly decided that it cannot afford to indefinitely boycott the process, not least because of the intense internal and international pressure on it to return to the negotiating table. But, while the House’s willingness to return to the political process is a positive step, the preconditions it has set for doing so are as stringent as one might expect. Indeed, these preconditions, many of which the House has been demanding for some time, are not new and include:

• The Presidency Council must be slimmed down to comprise a head and two deputies.
• The Presidency Council must choose a prime minister who should not be a member of the Presidency Council and who should work outside of it.
• The new prime minister should propose a government to be submitted to the House of Representatives for approval. Each minister must submit their political programme to the House for approval.
• The Higher State Council should comprise those members who were elected to the General National Congress (GNC) in July 2012.
• Article 8 of the Additional Provisions of the Libyan Political Agreement of December 2015 — which gives the right to the Presidency Council to take decisions on all senior military, civil and security appointments — should be cancelled.
• The political dialogue must take place inside Libya and should be supervised by the Arab League and the international community.

While some of these terms are less controversial — such as the reduction in the number of members of the Presidency Council, which is something that has long been called for by   [article continues]