Another chance

SINCE the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi nearly five years ago, good news from Libya has been in short supply. But on March 30th some came at last. Fayez al-Serraj, the prime minister of a new Government of National Accord (GNA) nominated by a UN-backed negotiation process, entered Tripoli with six ministerial colleagues. They had travelled by boat from Tunisia after the rival National Salvation Government, supported by mainly Islamist militias, had closed down Tripoli’s airspace. Despite fears that he would be killed on the way to his office, Mr Serraj was warmly received. Within days, key institutions of the state, including the central bank and the national oil company, had pledged loyalty to the GNA. Mr Serraj will have his work cut out if he is to have any hope of uniting this extraordinarily fractious country. Libya has been in chaos since the revolution of 2011. Things went from bad to worse in 2014, when Islamists responded to electoral defeat by seizing Tripoli and setting up a rival assembly to the internationally recognised parliament, known as the House of Representatives, which was forced to decamp to the eastern city of Tobruk. Under the respective banners of Operation Dawn in the west and Operation Dignity in the east, loose coalitions of militias and remnants of the armed forces have since fought each other sporadically.