Libya's parliament said Thursday it will hold a session next week in which it is likely to vote on confirming a new interim government though the incumbent administration has vowed it will not hand over power.
A year after a unity government was installed in Tripoli and two months after a scheduled election was canceled amid arguments over the rules, the dispute over how to move forward threatens to plunge Libya back into division.
Former Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha, the man designated by parliament to form the new government, said on Thursday he was ready to propose a Cabinet and the chamber's spokesperson said a session would be held Monday.
However, the current prime minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who took office through a United Nations-backed process, has said he will only hand over power after an election and this week said he was planning to hold a nationwide vote in the summer.
Parliament accuses Dbeibah of corruption and says his term expired on Dec. 24 when the election was meant to happen. Dbeibah denies this and says parliament itself is no longer valid eight years after it was elected.
Though parliament also says it plans a referendum on a new temporary constitution and elections after that, few analysts expect a national vote any time soon.
The tussle between Libya's rival political institutions now threatens to thrust the country back into conflict after the last major bout of fighting stopped in 2020.
Over recent weeks opposing armed factions have mobilized in the capital Tripoli and analysts say the political crisis could trigger clashes with potential knock-on effects across the country.
Libya has had little peace or security since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising against Moammar Gadhafi and it split after the last national election in 2014 between warring administrations ruling in Tripoli and the east.
Parliament mostly sided in that conflict with the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) of putschist Gen. Khalifa Haftar against the then internationally-backed government in Tripoli, an administration that included Bashagha.
Eastern forces were supported by Russia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt, while the Tripoli government was backed by Turkey.
It is not clear, however, whether any new conflict would take place along the same lines as the previous one, with Libyan political factions and armed groups having reconfigured their ties with past enemies and allies alike.
Libya's prospective prime minister, appointed by the war-torn country's parliament as it seeks to oust interim Dbeibah, also said Thursday his Cabinet line-up was ready.
"Prime Minister-designate Fathi Bashagha announces that his government is ready and will be presented to the House of Representatives" for a vote of confidence, Bashagha's office said in a statement.
In its statement, Bashagha's office said he had held "wide-ranging consultations with all political actors," including the House of Representatives and the High State Council.
The House of Representatives, based in eastern Libya since a 2014 flare-up in Tripoli, had picked Bashagha on Feb. 10 to head a new administration, replacing Dbeibah who was appointed a year ago as part of the U.N.-led peace efforts.
Parliament, led by Dbeibah and rival Aguila Saleh, had also approved a new 14-month road map to presidential elections.
The December polls, meant to help turn the page on a decade of conflict since the 2011 toppling of dictator Gadhafi in a NATO-backed uprising, were postponed amid bitter divisions over their legal basis and who could stand.
Bashagha's statement did not say when the confidence vote would take place, but the House of Representatives said it had scheduled a session for Monday, without saying what for.
Dbeibah on Monday launched a diatribe against the "hegemonic political class," in particular the eastern parliament, whose "reckless" decision to replace him "will inevitably lead to war." The U.N. and the world leaders have urged all sides to maintain calm.