Libya’s deal: Power, family and “stability”

Libya’s vast oil wealth has once again drawn international attention, as a new US-backed initiative seeks to reshape the country’s fractured political landscape.

At the centre of the effort is a proposed power-sharing arrangement between Libya’s two dominant families, an attempt to stabilise the country while global energy pressures intensify the imperial interests of the US, as first published in the Libya Gazette on May 11th.

The plan, according to officials, regional sources and analysts, aims to unify Libya by bridging its long-standing east-west divide, it would bring together the Dbeibeh family in western Libya and the Haftar family in the east, while gradually transferring authority to the younger generation of each family, as reported by Middle East Eye and agencies on May 5th.

Although discussions have been underway for months, momentum has increased amid the ongoing US-Israeli war involving Iran, which has driven up oil prices and renewed interest in Libya’s energy sector. The country, home to Africa’s largest proven oil reserves, has seen a sharp rise in revenues. The National Oil Corporation reported earnings of $2.9bn in April, marking a threefold increase since the start of the year.

Washington’s push is being led by Massad Boulos, an envoy under President Donald Trump, with backing from regional actors including Turkey. Central to the proposal is a leadership transition in Tripoli, where Ibrahim Dbeibah is being positioned to replace his cousin, current prime minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who is reportedly facing health challenges.

In the east, attention has turned to Saddam Haftar, son of the authoritarian General Khalifa Haftar. The 35-year-old, already a key military figure, is being considered for a leading national role, potentially as president. His growing diplomatic engagement, including meetings in Paris and Washington, signals his position as the international political poster boy, whereas his brothers have taken on roles with less public exposure.

Libya has remained divided since the NATO-backed 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi, with rival administrations in Tripoli and the east. Previous attempts at reconciliation, including a UN-backed political process, have failed to deliver lasting unity or elections.

Critics argue the current proposal risks sidelining the Libyan public. One former western official described the approach as an effort by external powers to “carve up the goodies” between entrenched elites, warning it could provoke backlash, particularly in western regions where the Haftar name remains contentious.

In this configuration, “stability” is defined narrowly, measured by uninterrupted production, safeguarded terminals, and the smooth operation of foreign energy interests, while questions of representation and civic inclusion are relegated to the background.

Internal divisions within both families further complicate the picture. Analysts note that neither the Dbeibeh nor Haftar camps are fully unified, raising questions about their ability to deliver a cohesive national settlement.

Despite these concerns, there have been tentative signs of progress. Libya’s central bank recently announced its first unified budget in over a decade, while joint military exercises involving eastern and western forces have taken place this year at the US-led Flintlock exercises. Still, doubts persist over Libya’s political and physical capacity to significantly boost oil production in the short term. Ageing infrastructure and governance challenges continue to limit output, with some analysts dismissing expectations that Libya could offset disruptions in global supply.

Even though “stability” has been prioritised over elected officials and national unification, a state of emergency was declared at Libya’s Zawiya oil refinery on May 8th  following armed clashes in the vicinity of the facility, underscoring the country’s persistent instability despite efforts to prioritise a secure operating environment for major energy interests.

The refinery, situated around 40 kilometres west of Tripoli, is Libya’s largest active processing plant, with a capacity of 120,000 barrels per day and links to the Sharara oil field, which produces approximately 300,000 barrels per day. While authorities later announced a broad security operation targeting what they described as criminal elements, details regarding casualties or the scale of the violence remained unclear.The incident underscores the persistent reality that, while maintaining stability to safeguard ongoing oil productionen has taken precedence over broader political reconciliation and national elections, Libya’s fractured landscape of competing militias continues to obstruct the efforts to expand and sustain higher levels of oil output.

The country remains split between the internationally recognised Government of National Unity in Tripoli, led by Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah, and an eastern administration based in Benghazi under Khalifa Haftar.

Despite years of United Nations-led initiatives aimed at bridging the divide and organising long-delayed elections to reunify Libya’s institutions, the political impasse persists, with episodes such as the clashes near Zawiya demonstrating the enduring fragmentation on the ground and its impact on oil production.

Even so, shifting regional alliances, including improved relations between Turkey and Egypt, have created a more favourable environment for cooperation. Whether this latest initiative can translate into a lasting stability that allows national elections to take place remains uncertain, but it does mark a renewed attempt to bring Libya’s competing centres of power under a single framework.

The proposed power-sharing arrangement between the Haftar and Dbeibeh families reflects less a breakthrough for Libya than a continuation of its entrenched autocratic patterns, repackaged for a new era, with US imperial interests taking centre stage.

By consolidating authority within two dynastic power centres, each rooted in patronage, coercion and opaque control, the agreement sidelines any meaningful prospect of democratic governance.

Rather than advancing elections or inclusive political processes, the approach signals that the United States and its allies are deprioritising the very democratic framework they once publicly championed.

In effect, it echoes the logic of the Gaddafi era, where power was personalised and centralised through an authoritarian family rule. The distinction between Gaddafi and Libya’s two new dynasties lies in not in their democratic values, but in their willingness to allow private oil giants to extract the country’s resources.

This alignment with US interests raises concerns that the country’s oil may once again be leveraged in ways that benefit external actors and domestic power brokers alike, while the Libyan people remain excluded from both political participation and economic gain.

The result is a political environment where stability functions as both justification and an objective, leaving democratic aspirations secondary to the imperatives of US resource security and corporate access to Libya’s oil and gas.

Libya Gazette, Middle East Eye and agencies, Maghrebi.org