The United Nations stands by the Libyan people to end the transitional period before the elections, the global body’s special adviser said Thursday.
"The U.N. will stand by the Libyan people in their demand for an electoral process to end the long transitional period," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' Special Adviser on Libya Stephanie Williams said in a tweet after a meeting with representatives of a consortium of political parties.
According to the U.N. diplomat, the representatives "demanded that the will of the 2.8 million Libyans who registered to vote must not be usurped."
"I also stressed the need for determined efforts to push forward on national reconciliation and transitional justice," she said.
Libya's presidential elections were scheduled to take place on Dec. 24 under a U.N. roadmap, but the country's election commission proposed a 1-month delay, citing inadequacies in electoral legislation and appeals related to candidates' eligibility.
The poll was meant to take place just over a year after a landmark east-west cease-fire in a country that has been ravaged by a decade of conflict since the 2011 revolt that overthrew and killed dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
But the run-up to the country's first-ever presidential election has been overshadowed by angry disputes over its legality and the candidacies of several controversial figures, including Gadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi.
One point of contention was a presidential elections law controversially passed by Parliament Speaker Aguila Saleh, which critics say bypassed due process and favored his ally, putschist Gen. Khalifa Haftar.
The law was strongly opposed by factions in western Libya, where Haftar had waged a yearlong battle to seize the capital Tripoli.
