---
title: "Libya's two chambers sign an election pact that sets no election date"
description: "The draft covers electoral laws and restructuring the elections commission. Members of both bodies say they have not seen it. A legal expert points to the gap between the people who signed and the institutions that would have to implement it."
category: "World"
category_url: https://newsparlor.com/category/world
author: "Maya Coleman"
published: 2026-08-25T07:37:18.000Z
updated: 2026-08-25T07:37:18.000Z
canonical: https://newsparlor.com/article/libyas-two-chambers-sign-an-election-pact-that-sets-no-election-date
tags: ["libya", "elections", "united-nations", "north-africa", "politics"]
---
# Libya's two chambers sign an election pact that sets no election date

The draft covers electoral laws and restructuring the elections commission. Members of both bodies say they have not seen it. A legal expert points to the gap between the people who signed and the institutions that would have to implement it.

Representatives of Libya's House of Representatives, based in the east, and the High Council of State, linked to the Tripoli government, signed a draft election agreement in Tunis on August 20, [Al Jazeera reports](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/25/libya-factions-draft-initial-election-pact-despite-lingering-mistrust). The talks ran through a UN-backed body of four members from each chamber, known as the 4+4 committee.

The draft addresses electoral laws and the restructuring of the national elections commission. Analysts note that it makes no concrete plans for holding elections, and no date is specified.

## Eight people signed something

That is the difficulty, put plainly. The 4+4 format exists because it is small enough to reach agreement, and it is small enough to reach agreement because it does not include the people who would have to act on it.

Al-Mahdi Kashbour, a legal expert, identified "a gap between the powers of the parties that signed the agreement and the institutions with the authority to implement it".

The evidence for that gap arrived immediately. Nuh al-Malati, a member of the High Council of State, said "The council has not yet received an official copy of the agreement". Khalifa al-Daghari, a member of the House of Representatives, said lawmakers "followed the details...through the media...without receiving any direct briefing". Mohamed al-Menfi, who leads the presidential council, criticized the "ambiguity surrounding the basis of the talks".

Those are three complaints from three different institutions, all of them nominally on the side that just signed.

## What is being avoided

The unresolved question is not electoral law. It is who governs and who controls resources during a transition, which is the thing every Libyan process since 2011 has failed to settle.

Electoral procedure is the part that can be agreed because it is downstream of that question. A commission can be restructured without anyone giving up anything. Naming a date, by contrast, forces a decision about who holds power on the way to it.

A UN spokesman, Mohammad al-Asadi, called the draft an "important step" and said the document will be published after final signing. We have reported previous stages of this process, including [rival governments agreeing a joint budget](/libya-s-rival-governments-agree-a-joint-budget-and-train-together).

## What we could not establish

We could not establish the contents of the draft, when a final signing might occur, whether either chamber will vote on it, or what the restructured commission would look like. We verified this account from a single publication.

## Sources

- [Libya factions draft initial election pact amid lingering mistrust](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/25/libya-factions-draft-initial-election-pact-despite-lingering-mistrust)