Podcasts

Back

Why Libya’s Electoral Process Is Flawed and How to Improve It

03
December 2021
Virginie Collombier, Noamane Cherkaoui

With elections in one month, Libya faces a multidimensional crisis. There is widespread disagreement with how the electoral process has transpired, which may set it up for rejection irrespective of how results pan out. As a result, it looks like things will only get worse before they get better. This podcast with Dr Virginie Collombier, a Part-time Professor and the scientific coordinator of the Middle East Directions Programme, explores how to support Libya in its post-conflict democratic transition, addressing features such as Libya’s institutions, its social contract, reconciliation, and accountability.

RELATED CONTENT

  • Authors
    Lina Jaoid
    October 8, 2026
    In the two years since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Russia has restructured its Mediterranean presence. Although Russia’s limited and increasingly conditional access to the Khmeimim and Tartus facilities in Syria has been preserved, its presence in the country has morphed from Assad’s ‘patron-client’ configuration to a more negotiated engagement. Simultaneously, Russia has upgraded its force-projection and logistical infrastructure in eastern Libya, giving it an access path ...
  • Authors
    October 2, 2026
    The incident involving Flydubai Flight FZ1073 between Dubai and Tel Aviv does not yet support any definitive attribution. It does, however, provide a useful warning sign: as aviation security closes off traditional avenues of intrusion, threats may shift towards alternative pathways by exploiting the people, service providers, and systems that the aviation ecosystem must necessarily trust.  ...
  • Authors
    October 2, 2026
    L’incident du vol FZ1073 entre Dubaï et Tel-Aviv ne permet encore aucune attribution définitive. Il constitue en revanche un révélateur utile : à mesure que la sûreté aérienne ferme les voies classiques d’intrusion, la menace cherche à emprunter des voies alternatives en exploitant les personnes, les prestataires et les systèmes auxquels l’écosystème aéronautique doit nécessairement accorder sa confiance. ...
  • Authors
    September 30, 2026
    On August 7, 2026, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Défense Agreement, a collective-defense pact widely compared to NATO’s Article 5. This essay argues that the comparison is misleading. Mecca borrows NATO’s language of solidarity without yet possessing NATO’s institutional machinery, and the Houthi offensive against Saudi Arabia in September 2026 provided an early and revealing test of what the agreement actually means in practice. Neither Pakistan nor Turk ...
  • September 25, 2026
    In this episode, Senior Fellow Ian Lesser examines the United States’ longstanding ties with the Mediterranean as the country marks its 250th anniversary. He discusses how a possible shif ...
  • September 16, 2026
    Much of Western debate was revealingly silent on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, which took place on August 31 and September 1 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. That relative silence reflects how poorly the organization’s growing significance is still understood. The meeting has not gone unreported. Any gathering of Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi, and Vladimir Putin inevitably attracts&nbs ...
  • Authors
    August 13, 2026
    The Resolution adopted by an overwhelming majority of elected European officials in Strasbourg on June 10, 2021, on "the violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the exploitation of minors by the authorities in the migration crisis in Ceuta" (2021/2747/RSP), could not fail to leave its mark.Decoding the ResolutionThe Resolution shocked Moroccans to such an extent that it was quickly set aside at the time, as if there were a wish to forget it as fast as possible. ...
  • Authors
    August 13, 2026
    Cuando estalla una crisis, esta da lugar a la activación de reflejos para su gestión y la limitación de sus efectos. Comienzan, entonces, los análisis y las suposiciones sobre las disfunciones, los incumplimientos y las fallas que la ocasionaron. En algunos casos, la teoría de la conspiración se inmiscuye y las hipótesis buscan a los autores que provocaron la crisis, sus designios y sus objetivos. Sin embargo, la teoría de la gestión de crisis nos enseña que una crisis surge según ...
  • Authors
    August 12, 2026
    When a crisis erupts, it sets crisis-management reflexes in motion and prompts efforts to contain its effects. Analysts then begin looking for the malfunctions, oversights, and failures that caused it. In some cases, conspiracy theories creep in, and speculation turns to who engineered the crisis, and to what end. Crisis-management theory teaches us, however, that a crisis unfolds under conditions that favor its emergence. Crises take shape in an environment where latent vulnerabil ...
  • Authors
    August 11, 2026
    Lorsqu’une crise éclate, elle donne lieu à l’actionnement des réflexes pour sa gestion et la limitation de ses effets. Commencent, alors, les analyses et les suppositions sur les dysfonctionnements, les manquements et les défaillances ayant entrainé ladite crise. Dans certains cas, la théorie du complot s’ingère et les hypothèses cherchent les auteurs ayant provoqué la crise, leurs desseins et leurs buts.Cependant, la théorie de gestion des crises nous apprend qu’une crise inte ...