In the harshest attack to date on General National Congress (GNC) president Nuri Abu Sahmain, maverick Misratan politician Abdurrahman Sewehli has accused him of damaging the UN-led Libya Dialogue process because of “narrow personal interests”. He accused him too of hypocrisy and of “blindly and madly” believing he was the guardian of the revolution.
In a statement published yesterday on his Facebook page, he said that through “stubbornness, manoeuvrings and delaying tactics” over the past three months, Abu Sahmain had brought about a split in the GNC, had fractured the country’s unity and prevented the GNC from ensuring that the Libya Political Agreement produced by the Dialogue was more balanced. “We hold GNC President responsible for the present developments of the UN-facilitated political dialogue”, he said.
Sewehli, a member of the GNC as well as a boycotting member of the House of Representatives, became one of the GNC’s negotiating team at the Libya Dialogue in September.
Stating that he and other GNC negotiators had worked hard to ensure changes to the LPA, he accused Abu Sahmain and his supporters of hypocrisy both in claiming that the Dialogue was the result of foreign imposition and intervention, and in accusing those who differed with them of treason.
Abu Sahmain’s meeting with HoR president Ageela Saleh in Malta had been “held under the auspices of foreign mediation in a European country” he said. Furthermore, in relation to the “Libya-Libya” dialogue which Abu Sahmain now supports, Sewehli insisted that it was wholly unacceptable that those who now were “calling for reconciliation with those whom they described as traitors and agents until recently, should at the same describe those who oppose them of treason, even though they were on the same side until recently”.
One of Abu Sahmain’s supporters in the GNC, Sebha member Abdul Qader Ehwaili, has said that there would be an internal enquiry into those GNC members who had signed the LPA in Skhirat and that they faced expulsion and replacement by more amenable persons.
The unprecedented assault, particularly coming from Sewehli who has been long viewed as a hardliner, indicates the depth of division within the GNC and, as a result, its growing irrelevance even in Tripoli.
In a sharp personal verbal attack, he also questioned Abu Sahmain’s sanity, saying that he himself rejected “self-proclaimed guardians, who so blindly and madly believe they represent patriotism and the revolution, inciting the killing of opponents with accusations of treason”.
He condemned what he called “new tyrants, whatever the justification”.
Sehwehli added that he himself would not be “a stumbling block” to any agreement that could bring peace, security and stability to Liby. He was ready to make compromises to that end, he said.
By Saber Ayyub.
