There have been other attempts made in the past but this time, those involved hope it will finally work out: Thanks to mediation by the United Nations, the two opposing governments in the west and east of Libya have agreed that they will hold parliamentary and presidential elections within the next two years.

"The agreement marks an important step in advancing Libya towards national elections and ending the transitional period," the UN's Support Mission in Libya, or UNSMIL, said in a statement.

Among other things, the country's electoral commission will be restructured and, according to the UN, various points about the legal framework for the elections that had previously led to disagreements have now been resolved.

But whether all this will actually result in free and fair elections in Libya remains to be seen.

Divided for over a decade

After former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown in 2011, Libya ended up divided in two.

Since 2014, the country has been split between opposing governments located in the east and west of the country. A UN-backed administration known as the Government of National Unity is based in Tripoli in the west, and its rival, known as the House of Representatives, is based in the east, in Tobruk.

Former warlord-turned-politician Khalifa Haftar, is based in the east while Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah is in charge in the west.

Each is supported by a number of local militias and foreign powers, and each has tried to wrest control from the other. Up until now, attempts to hold an election that would unite the country have failed.

For Andreas Dittmann, a geographic conflict expert and professor at the University of Giessen in Hesse, central Germany, the apparent unity is a positive.

"Things could not continue the way they were," he told DW.

After years of civil war and political division, the desire of many Libyans to end the fighting permanently has only grown. Dittmann believes the attitudes of political actors have also changed in this regard.

Previously foreign actors had supported just one Libyan government, but now that has also changed and the prevailing argument seems to be that Libya can only develop further if both sides are incorporated into one administration.

This is why the UN is trying to go beyond simply arranging a date for elections. It also wants to strengthen the electoral commission and work on electoral laws. The new and united government will be responsible for establishing the conditions for a secure and trusted electoral process. 

The UN has also set up what it calls "Structured Dialogues," during which consensus was sought on questions of leadership, security, the economy and reconciliation.

Past agreements didn't work out

Michael Bauer, who heads the Tunisia office of Germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation, believes the agreement is an important, if limited, step. Its success will depend on how binding any decisions are, he argued.

After all, Bauer said, there have been plenty of political agreements in Libya in the recent past but none were really ever implemented.

Parallel to the UN process, the US is also trying to work on bringing the disparate leadership together. Massad Boulos, the Trump administration's senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs, has been trying to bring the Dbeibah and Haftar families together.

In June, Haftar's son Saddam was in Washington where he met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Bauer said the American way of dealing with Libya differentiates from the UN plan. "While the UN mission has basically been very inclusive, in my opinion, the American mission is trying to bring about a kind of deal between the country's elites," he told DW.

He questions how such a deal would fit into free and fair elections in Libya.

"Elections can only be meaningful if the outcome has not already been decided beforehand," Bauer said. The same is true for any pre-election allocation of political positions.

Elites strike a deal?

UK-based think tank Chatham House has already warned that a deal like this, around ministries and resources, will only institutionalize the existing rivalry between Libya's ruling elites. With such an arrangement the rival actors would just divide the state's resources between themselves, and corruption and patronage systems would continue.

The country's division into east and west will be hard to overcome. A new united government would have to deal with preexisting power structures, rather than starting anew. 

Dittmann said there is a further problem. Much of the Libyan population lives in the western areas, especially in the Tripoli region. This would see the eastern half of the country lose power if elections are held.

"If there are elections, and if those elections proceed mostly according to democratic principles, then the east can really only lose," he explained.

Additionally, there are also external actors to consider. Russia has extended its positioning in the east while Turkey supports the government in the west.

Alongside all of that is also the question of what the Libyan people want and what they expect from a united government. Bauer doubts elections alone can resolve Libya's problems.

"The people have a particular interest in seeing the country's dysfunction end," he said.

Libya is rich in raw materials and energy reserves, but also plagued by problems like power outages and inadequate public services. If the state was functioning properly, it would likely curtail the power of those currently benefiting most from the country's resources and, as Bauer argued, "why would they voluntarily give up these opportunities?"

That will be the most difficult question for the next two years. The new agreement between Libya's political rivals must do more than simply establish a path toward elections. It must also create a framework in which those rivals accept the results of an election and in which public institutions function properly.

This story was originally written in German.