Benghazi: Lawmakers on Sunday removed Libyan Prime Minister Mustafa Abu Shagour from his post after rejecting his choice of Cabinet ministers in the latest setback to Libya’s first elected government since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.

The parliament decisively voted down Abu Shagour’s proposal for a 10-member emergency Cabinet to run the country for six months, three days after protesters stormed the national assembly to oppose his choice for a full Cabinet because they said their cities were underrepresented.

Lawmakers will have to select a new prime minister, a process that could take several weeks while the country continues to suffer from lawlessness and drift after the eight-month civil war that toppled Gaddafi last October. One potential candidate could be Mahmoud Jibril, the former transitional prime minister whom Abu Shagour edged out in winning the post.

The deadly September 11 attack on a US diplomatic post in eastern Libya underscored the country’s security vacuum, with heavily armed militants easily overrunning the compound and then disappearing into the night. Libyan officials have not identified any suspects, though an undisclosed number reportedly have been detained, and US investigators visited the site for the first time last week after lengthy delays in obtaining approval from authorities in the capital, Tripoli.

“The new government isn’t interested in governing; they are only interested in counting their posts and lining their pockets,” said Hamad Bougrain, a spokesman for the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, one of several militias in the eastern city of Benghazi that have stepped in to provide security in the absence of a credible police force.

Abu Shagour, a former engineering professor at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, was elected last month and considered a middle-of-the-road candidate who could unite Islamists and secular Libyans. But the opposition to his Cabinet picks reflected the deep animosities among cities and tribes that linger from Gaddafi’s four decades of divide-and-rule tactics.

Abu Shagour was due to present nominations for a full 29-member Cabinet on Thursday, but dozens of protesters from the western town of Zawiya, which was heavily bombarded by pro-Gaddafi forces during the uprising, stormed the assembly building demanding greater representation. Some of the protesters also complained that too many ministries had been assigned to the Muslim Brotherhood, which lost out to liberal parties in parliamentary balloting in July.

Abu Shagour was forced to withdraw his picks, and the parliament gave him 72 hours to present a new slate. Before the vote on Sunday evening, Abu Shagour said he had selected 10 nominees for a Cabinet that would serve for six months, and he called on the legislative body, the General National Congress, to “assume its responsibilities at this historic time”.

The congress voted 125-44 in favour of removing him, with 19 abstentions.