This week, another United Nations special envoy for Libya was frustrated enough with the political situation in the fractured country to quit his job.

After 18 months in the post, the Senegalese diplomat Abdoulaye Bathily said he had done his best to get the five key political actors in Libya to resolve contested issues over electoral laws, form a unified government and set the country on a path towards long-delayed elections.

"But my attempts were met with stubborn resistance, unreasonable expectations and indifference to the interests of the Libyan people," Bathily told reporters on Tuesday.

In the history of the UN Support Mission in Libya — launched in 2011 to help facilitate a political process that would lead to national and parliamentary elections after the ouster of longtime dictator Muammar Ghaddafi — Bathily's resignation is a repetition of what happened in 2020 and 2021.

In 2020,Ghassan Salame resigned, saying that "for two years, I tried to re-unite Libyans and restrain foreign interference…but for health reasons, I can no longer continue with this level of stress."

Salame was succeeded by Jan Kubis, who resigned in November 2021, also citing health reasons.

Jalel Harchaoui, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank, said that it was quite likely that Stephanie Koury from the United States, currently........

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