Libyan Muslim Brotherhood: current PM needs to be replaced

Chief of the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya Bashir Al-Kabti suggests that there is a national consensus about Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zaydan no longer fitting into this transitional stage, and revealed that there have been on-going talks to determine his successor.

Speaking with a German news agency Al-Kabti said: “Demands for Zaydan to resign have been raised for a long time based on his failure to deal with the security dossier.” Al-Kabti stressed that there is no connection between the call for the PM to resign and his recent visit to Egypt.

When asked about whether there was any national agreement on the PM’s failure, Al-Kabti said: “We have a National Assembly, which questioned Zaydan and privately asked him to resign, but Zaydan refused. He asked the Assembly to get 120 voices asking him to resign.”

Al-Kabti said that he did not know how many voices lobbied against Zaydan because the Assembly deals with the Justice and Construction party, not with the Muslim Brotherhood. But he explained that there is also public backing for Zaydan’s departure.

Head of the Justice and Construction party Mohamed Sowan said that he secured 100 members of the National Assembly calling for Zaydan to be replaced.

Regarding possible replacements, Al-Kabti said: “We, the Muslim Brotherhood, have not searched for a candidate and we are not going to nominate any. We are calling for a national and independent person who can do the mission.”

The Muslim Brotherhood leader denied information that his group has rejected Zaydan ever since his nomination. “This is untrue… In fact, we did initially have some issues, but when he was nominated, we overtly hoped all success for him.”

He said that his group only called for him to resign after the attacks in Benghazi when 50 Libyans were killed.

Replying to claims that his group has been affected by the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, he affirmed that there is no organisational connection between the two groups. “We even have our own ideology, which is different than that of our brothers in Egypt,” he said.