GENEVA, 2 February, 2021 (TON): The Libyan Political Dialogue Forum’s convention commenced on Monday in Geneva, in the presence of the UN Acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General Stephanie Williams.

There are expectations that the meeting will last till 5 February, 2021.

It is supposed to vote on the positions of a three-member Presidency Council and the Prime Minister of Libya, in accordance with the roadmap adopted by the Forum in Tunis in mid-November.

Altogether, 21 candidates have been nominated to be prime minister, and 24 to sit on the presidency council.

"You have put an indelible mark on the calendar for the holding of national elections on December 24th of this year. This decision was greeted with the overwhelming approval by your compatriots, and it is a commitment which must be honored at all costs," Stephanie Williams, acting UN Envoy for Libya said.

In response to militias’ rejection of the political process initiated by the UN, tensions have been high since Sunday in Tripoli,  

Hundreds of military vehicles filled with armed men from several locations in Western Libya convened in the capital.

It is suspected that the ones picked by the UN-selected Libyan Political Dialogue Forum will be accepted by rival regimes in the east and west of the country.

Libya has been mired in violence since the 2011 fall of longtime ruler Moamer Kadhafi in a NATO-backed uprising, with an array of armed groups and two administrations vying for power.

The UN-recognized Government of National Accord dominates Tripoli and the west, while an eastern administration is backed by part of the HoR, elected in 2014 -- along with military chief Khalifa Haftar.

The conditions in the region have been disturbed for so long when the two sides signed a formal peace deal in October that paved the way for the well-wishers and pumped new life into the efforts of the United Nations for resolving the political conflict.