Haftar declares Libya will have a unified government within two weeks

As one of Libyan National Army head Khalifa Haftar’s lesser known sons inaugurated a youth political platform in Benghazi on 29 March, Haftar made some key remarks. He announced that within two weeks there will be a unified government in Libya and that sovereign institutions will be unified to support the process towards elections in the country. These remarks contrast widely with the Libyan National Army’s (LNA) public perception campaign of imminent military victory in Tripoli.While many sources indicate that the National Conference process has not matured yet, and the prospect of a major unravelling is high, there are indicators that compromises may have been reached - with the brokering of the UN and the international community - between Haftar, the Misratans and the GNA to facilitate a new unified government and a new political roadmap to be endorsed. It is likely that the LNA is focusing on projecting its military power in western Libya not because it is about to launch an imminent move on Tripoli, but because it wants factions in this region to believe that the LNA will eventually become a significant or even dominant power player in this region, making it more likely they will strike political deals or accommodations before, during or after the National Conference.