Libya rivals test a new path towards unity, 15 years after Gadaffi downfall

In April, Libya’s rival legislatures agreed for the first time in more than a decade on a budget of 190 billion dinars, almost $30bn, split between the two rival camps in the country.

Fifteen years after Muammar Gaddafi’s downfall in Tripoli this week, the United States-backed budget captures both the divisions that shape Libya and an emerging space that could incentivise cooperation between the country’s two authorities.

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The vacuum that emerged following the overthrow of Gaddafi produced rival institutions, recurrent conflict and delayed elections. Now, these political adversaries are finding ways to work together.

The election that worked, once

Libya has been in an almost perpetual state of conflict since antigovernment protests broke out in 2011 and were violently crushed by the police and military.

The suppression of demonstrations sparked an armed uprising in cities across Libya, centred on Benghazi. In August 2011, rebels began the Battle of Tripoli, resulting in Gaddafi’s flight from the capital and the overthrow of his regime.

The National Transitional Council, which led the 2011 uprising, promised to rule only until Libyans elected a parliament. In July 2012, about 1.76 million voted in the first national election since 1964, handing power to the winners, with the authority soon dissolving itself.

It was the first time, and remains the last, that a Libyan election ended in a peaceful handover of power.

It did not last for long, and in May 2014, Khalifa Haftar, a former Gaddafi general, launched a self-described “anti-terrorism campaign” against armed groups in Benghazi, while forces aligned with Haftar attacked the parliament in Tripoli.

Libya’s next vote was in June 2014, when only 630,000 of Libya’s 1.5 million registered voters cast their ballots. Polling stations in several cities never even opened, and the results were disputed by the outgoing parliament.

The newly named MPs relocated east, where Haftar’s forces backed the new Tobruk-based parliament.

National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters celebrate during street battle in the 700 complex area of ‘Emarat’ against Muammar Gaddafi’s troops on October 8, 2011 in Sirte, Libya [Majid Saeedi/Getty]

The result was two authorities at war with one another, and a 2015 UN peace deal preserved both parliaments rather than replacing them. The Government of National Accord (GNA) was formed that year, which became the sole authority recognised by the UN.

Conflict between the two sides continued with a 2019 offensive on Tripoli by Haftar-linked forces against the GNA, before a ceasefire took hold in 2020.

A second UN process installed Abdul Hamid Dbeibah as the Government of National Unity (GNU) interim prime minister in 2021. But this was contingent on new elections in December 2021, and Dbeibah could not be a candidate.

Nearly three million Libyans registered for the election, but two days before the vote, it was cancelled by the country’s election chief. Dbeibah had registered to run regardless, and he has refused to step down.

But election laws are written by the east-based parliament, which has backed a rival administration to the GNU since 2022.

All the major actors publicly support elections. But what is disputed is which candidates are eligible to run, the process of the ballot, and the powers of the next government.

The United States, under President Donald Trump, has attempted to reconcile the two factions, but its efforts have also faced an impasse.

The front line holds

Amid the political deliberations, the front lines between the militias aligned with either party have barely changed.

In April, soldiers aligned to the eastern and western authorities trained side by side for the first time in more than a decade.

This took place during a United States-led military exercise in Sirte, close to the ceasefire line between the two rival Libyan factions.

It was presided over by Khalifa Haftar’s son, Saddam, who has become an influential figure in Libya, while Tripoli’s deputy defence minister, Abdel Salaam Zoubi, also blessed the move.

Deputy Commander of the Libyan National Army, Lieutenant General Saddam Haftar looks on before his meeting with the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in Athens, on Monday, June 15, 2026 [Petros Giannakouris/AP]

But violence within both camps has continued. Last year in Tripoli, Abdul Ghani al-Kikli, known as Ghnewa, a militia leader with a formal security post, was assassinated at a meeting with commanders from his own side.

Last week, Haftar’s military intelligence chief, Fawzi al-Mansouri, was killed after a bomb attached to his car in Benghazi exploded.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for either of the assassinations, but it now appears that intra-authority violence is emerging, just as fighting between the eastern and western authorities subsides.

From blockades to bargains

Since 2011, oil exports – the mainstay of the Libyan economy – have been repeatedly disrupted by factions closing ports and oilfields as leverage against their rivals.

In 2017, Libya’s Central Bank calculated more than $160bn in direct and indirect losses from three years of shutdowns of Libya’s oil infrastructure.

Haftar’s 2020 blockade of oilfields and terminals contributed nearly $10bn to the country’s losses, with further closures in 2022 and 2024.

This use of self-destructive economic warfare has largely halted, and Arkenu, became the first private company to export Libyan crude through an arrangement reached in Abu Dhabi between rival politicians and commanders.

UN investigators later raised questions about ownership and revenue flows, and the arrangement was terminated this year. But what it did show was that the two camps could identify a shared interest and keep oil moving, something that might pave the way for a political agreement.

Despite having Africa’s largest oil reserves, the country refines barely any crude and Libya’s largest refinery has been offline since 2013.

Libya exports crude at world prices, imports refined fuel, then subsidises it domestically to be sold for only a few cents a litre – a gap that makes smuggling it out to neighbouring countries enormously profitable.

Vehicles wait in a long queue to top up fuel in the eastern outskirts of Libya’s capital Tripoli on August 20, 2026 [AFP]

Blackouts have hit much of Libya in the middle of this year, cutting water supplies, disrupting bank services and telecoms, and sparking protests in the capital.

The dinar has fallen from 1.3 dinars to the dollar in 2011 to more than nine on the parallel market this month, creating strains that the average household is struggling to keep up with.

Institutions built for the transition have become part of rival states. Revolutionaries joined the security services, interim governments outlasted their deadlines, and blockades gave way to negotiations over revenue.

Libya’s rivals have learned to bargain without a political settlement, and everyday Libyans, three wars in, have no appetite for a fourth.

What has not been tested is whether this bargaining between rivals on economic issues can extend to power itself.