The UN Special Envoy Ghassan Salamé spoke to the Libyan press on 6 December after his series of meetings with key domestic and international leaders over the last month. Salamé insisted that the democratic transition — and consequently the political crisis that has plagued the country since 2014 — would end in 2018. Salamé also insisted that the only way for this to happen is through amendments to the Libyan Political Agreement that was signed almost exactly two years ago in the Moroccan town of Skhirat.

The end of Libya’s democratic transition has appeared to recede into the future since the political crisis began. The draft constitution remains unendorsed and controversial which is due in part because of the non-participation of some minority groups — including the Amazigh (Berber) and Tebu — in the drafting process. National reconciliation, which is another component of the democratic transition, has not been attempted at a national level in four years.

Local reconciliation efforts have, however, been more promising, and a productive 6-8 December meeting — in the northern Tunisian coastal city of Hammamet, which included over 90 of Libya’s mayors from across the country — highlighted the promising role that local officials could play if given sufficient power through decentralisation. Because of this situation, the constitution drafting assembly has been burdened with coping with difficult conversations about Libya’s past, present and future which has delayed and undermined its progress. In particular, a lack of any meaningful conversations about decentralisation and the distribution of oil wealth outside the constitution drafting process has not only contributed to instability but also the political crisis.

The Libyan Political Agreement, which was established to overcome the political crisis, is also facing a growing crisis of legitimacy. In the past, when Libyan leaders have become exasperated with their political institutions, they have highlighted interpretations of guiding documents that suggest that the institutions’ mandates are on the verge of expiry. In 2013, this happened to the General National Congress (Congress) when it was allegedly hijacked by certain Islamist political parties and their associated militias. Congress’ opponents highlighted a vague interpretation of the transition timeline — laid out in the Constitutional Declaration of 2011 — to support their argument that its mandate had expired.

Those who currently wish to undermine the political dialogue process — who stand to gain from an alternative to a political solution — are now claiming that that 2015 agreement states that the institutions it created would expire two years after the agreement came into effect. They therefore argue that the agreement, signed on 17 December 2015, expires this week. The self-styled Libyan National Army’s (LNA) spokesman, Ahmed Mismari, released a series of social media posts on 9 December continuing the #WeAreReady online campaign. This worrying phrase signals that the LNA is prepared to assume control of Libya if the political dialogue does not result in a new government by the time the GNA’s mandate expires on 17 December.

There are many others, however, who support the GNA — which was established in the agreement — who argue that the clock counting down the GNA’s mandate has not even begun because the House of Representatives (House) has not yet even endorsed it.