Libya’s electoral commission has asked the government for $28.7 million, saying the funding is needed to boost its “zero” budget to organise a vote on a new constitution as early as February.
Western powers and the United Nations hope Libya will hold a national election by June after a referendum on a constitutional framework to chart a way out of a conflict stemming from the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
A French plan, backed by the United Nations, had initially called for a presidential and parliamentary vote on December 10.
But weeks of fighting in the capital Tripoli between competing groups and almost no progress between the North African country’s two rival parliaments made that impossible.
Now Emad al-Sayah, chairman of the High National Elections Commission (HNEC), said on Thursday his group needed funding to plan for the constitutional vote.
“The budget of the commission is zero, it’s red,” he told reporters. “We have financial commitments of half a million (dinars).”
He said the commission had asked the Tripoli-based government to get 40 million dinars ($28.7 million) to start the process for a constitutional vote.
It was not immediately possible to reach the…