By William Maclean
Anti-Qaddafi rebels
Obstinate
resistance by Muammar Gaddafi's last strongholds is an embarrassment for
Libya's new rulers, and bickering that delayed the formation of a new interim
government suggests potentially damaging internal political rifts are widening.
But for now Libya's new political leaders have an indulgent audience, at least
in Tripoli, the capital city that fell from Gaddafi's grasp less than a month
ago. Here, the savour of life released from the yoke of an all-powerful ruler
who named himself the Guide, Brother Leader and Africa's King of Kings remains
intensely sweet.
The
fact that Libya's new and crowded political field has produced a cacophony of
argumentative voices is seen by political analysts and many ordinary Libyans as
a refreshing change from the stultifying monotone of Gaddafi's dictatorship.
Islamists and secularists have sparred in public over how to manage the
transition from despotism to democracy, and leaders in towns and villages hard
hit by the six-month conflict have demanded posts in the new administration,
arguing that their communities need funds to rebuild.
But
the alliance of convenience among anti-Gaddafi forces from a variety of
political backgrounds born in the eastern city of Benghazi in February and
March is not about to unravel, Libyan and foreign political analysts say, and
its support among the Western and Arab nations that helped it toppled Gaddafi
remains strong.
The
increasingly raucous political debate emerging in the country is overlaid with
a sense of relief that Gaddafi and his terrifying police state has gone, and
his voice no longer dominates the airwaves of state radio and television. In
Martyrs' Square, where traffic police in crisply pressed white uniforms took up
patrols on Monday for the first time since Gaddafi's fall, engineer Mustafa
Shaab bin Ragheb spelt out his priorities.
The
delay in the new government isn't important. It's like a sick man," he
told Reuters as he rummaged at a roadside kiosk for rings bearing revolutionary
slogans. "He has to move slowly before he can walk at a normal speed. We
need time to recover." Then he added, waving his arms: "Look, we
finally got rid of that bloody monkey. We are better than before."
"We will hang him and his sons, and then we can breathe freely. It's too
early for politics.
Ramdan
Bashiroun, a retired teacher, said it was normal that negotiations among
Libya's new rulers would take time. "Gaddafi burned us for 40 years. He
crushed all our possibilities," Bashiroun said. The patience of Tripolitanians
has been greatly helped by the return of power, water, food markets,
telecommunications, and a start to the back payment of wages due for the months
of the conflict. But patience has its limits, and officials of new interim
National Transitional Council (NTC) know that further progress on the military
front is vital. Failure to take the Gaddafi-held towns of Bani Walid, Sirte and
Sabha threatens the NTC's credibility.
On
Sunday, NTC forces fled in a chaotic retreat from Bani Walid, after failing
once again to storm it. Fighters told Reuters that confused orders, no central
command and dissent in the ranks were to blame. The story was similar at Sirte,
where NTC forces have made better progress but have still been repulsed by
Gaddafi loyalists in four days of heavy fighting. Early progress is not
guaranteed, despite help from NATO air power.
But
Saad Djebbar, a London-based Algerian lawyer who acted for Libya in the Lockerbie
bombing case, said the disarray was not surprising to Libyans and should not
alarm foreign allies. The coalition that toppled Gaddafi involved exiles,
activists from the anti-Gaddafi underground, ordinary Libyans from many
backgrounds who had suffered repression.
Everyone
came together at short notice and in such conditions not everything was bound
to go smoothly, he said. "What do you expect? It needs an exceptional
effort and these are exceptional circumstances," he said. "If
anything, the more you have military problems the more it will keep them
together. It doesn't necessary mean a lack of leadership. They are very
responsibly taking their time and building a consensus about taking their
forces forward.
Political
analyst Ashour Shamis said there was a potentially tricky link between the
political and military domains and NTC leaders would have to show political
deftness, and tolerance, in navigating a path to a new constitution. The NTC
has drawn up a road map, setting out plans for a new constitution and elections
over a 20-month period, which should start once a declaration of
"liberation" is made. It is not clear what liberation entails but it
is likely to be conditional upon the capture of Gaddafi and the defeat of his
loyalists in the three key towns they still hold.
Confidence
in the NTC's ability to steer a steady path took a knock on Sunday when it
failed to agree on a new cabinet. The cabinet was dissolved last month after
procedural errors in the handling of the unexplained shooting dead of the then
NTC military chief. A new executive committee, to include officials responsible
for defence and interior affairs, was supposed to be appointed by interim Prime
Minister Mahmoud Jibril on Sunday.
But
the talks broke down when his proposals did not receive full backing from all
current members. Ashour Shamis said the divisions were "a natural process.
They have to accommodate so many people, so many talents and so many
geographical considerations". "Libyans didn't have experience of this
process for 42 years and these kind of negotiations are genuinely
difficult," Djebbar said.
The
one prescription for success so far we have seen continuously in the Arab
Spring has been the process of coalition building. The Arab Spring idea is that
you're looking for consensus, a result where no winner takes all, there is no
monopoly of truth and no monopoly of power from anyone, in contrast to
dictators who are omnipotent.
There
have been anxieties among Western officials about rifts between rival factions,
including Islamists possibly backed by interests in the Gulf, in the ranks of
the NTC. Concerns in the West about Islamists were exacerbated this month when
some of them criticised Libya's interim rulers - a mainly secular group of
technocrats, some of them former Gaddafi officials -for allegedly behaving in a
high handed manner towards Islamists and those of other political persuasions.
But
Tripoli military commander Abdel Hakim Belhadj told Reuters on Sunday the
outbreak of public ill-feeling was more the result of a desire to air
long-suppressed views than any ideological divide. "What you see now is
the eruption of someone who was under oppression," he said. "Libyans
were denied the right to express their feelings ... There was a wall in front
of them. When this wall was removed they just started to express themselves.
Shamis agreed, describing the ideological component of the bickering as
"minimal". "It's emotional rather than logical," he said. –
Reuters
This analysis was published in The Kuwait Times on 20/09/2011
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