Tripoli: A pro-Islamist figure, Omar Al Hassi, on Tuesday presented a cabinet line-up to the outgoing General National Congress, which quickly recognised the list rivalling Libya’s internationally recognised government.

The interim GNC “approved Mr [Al] Hassi’s government”, assembly spokesperson Omar Ahmidan said, without specifying if the line-up had yet been formally submitted for approval.

Al Hassi’s cabinet list is made up of 19 personalities little-known to Libya’s wider public, the official Lana news agency said.

Al Hassi, a political science lecturer at the University of Benghazi in eastern Libya, was the losing candidate in a GNC election in June to elect a new premier and parliament. On August 25, he was tapped by the GNC to form a “salvation government” that would challenge the authority of the body now sitting in the eastern city of Tobruk.

Ahmad Mitig was elected instead, but the supreme court ruled his election unconstitutional and Abdullah Al Thinni remained interim premier.

Al Thinni now heads a toothless outgoing government that admitted on Monday from its safe refuge in Tobruk that control of Tripoli had in effect been lost to militias.

Libya had been sliding steadily into chaos since Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed in October 2011.

The government in Tobruk announced last week that it had tendered its resignation to parliament, which on Monday voted to ask Al Thinni to form a streamlined new cabinet.

The parallel administration in Tripoli was born after mostly Islamist militiamen on August 22 seized the capital’s international airport from nationalist rivals. After their victory, the GNC — whose mandate had officially expired with the election of a new government — tasked Al Hassi with forming a parallel administration.

Interim authorities had been steadily losing ground to the militias and the Fajr Libya (Libya Dawn) alliance of mainly Islamist groups, which seized Tripoli airport after weeks of fighting.

The central bank of the troubled but oil-rich North African nation, meanwhile, appealed on Tuesday for it to be kept out of the political chaos, warning in a statement that the international community could otherwise “freeze the assets of the Libyan government”.