The last days of Gaddafi

Libya’s National Transitional Council is led by Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, Gaddafi’s former justice minister [EPA]

The endgame in the Libyan conflict has at last arrived. Much of Libya’s capital is now in the hands of the rebel army, as it enters from all directions.

The military impotence of forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had been matched by the regime’s growing political disarray. Senior Gaddafi cronies were defecting – most recently Deputy Interior Minister Nasser al-Mabrouk Abdullah, who fled to Cairo with nine family members, followed a few days later by Libya’s oil chief, Omran Abukraa. Now a number of Gaddafi’s sons, including Saif al-Islam, his putative heir, had been taken by the rebels. Like Saddam Hussein in 2003, Gaddafi appears to have gone into hiding.

So what, now, will become of post-Gaddafi Libya? Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell famously admonished President George W Bush before the Iraq War: “If you break it, you own it.” Bush, however, shrugged off Powell’s warning, and it was not long before the world watched in horror as it became clear that there was no detailed plan to govern or rebuild post-Saddam Iraq. Instead, the country endured a hideous war of all against all that left uncounted thousands dead.

Are the NATO countries that undertook military intervention in Libya better prepared to restore a broken Libya? Fortunately, one building block that was not available to Bush – a legitimate government to assume authority – is available for Libya.

Meeting Abdel-Jalil

The National Transitional Council, established in February by a rebel coalition forged in Benghazi, is led by Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who resigned from his position as Gaddafi’s justice minister on February 26 in response to the regime’s violent crackdown on peaceful protests. Will it be able to exercise authority and ensure security for ordinary Libyans, thereby preventing a recurrence of the blood vendettas that shattered Iraq after Saddam’s fall?

As chair of the Japan-Libya Friendship Association, I decided to find out. On August 5, late at night, I visited Abdel-Jalil in Al Baida, approximately 200km from Benghazi. I arrived at the diminutive NTC chairman’s home well after midnight.

Wearing traditional Libyan garb, he offered me a red cushioned chair while he sat on a simple wooden stool. His modest demeanour stood in stark contrast to Gaddafi, who always sat on a luxurious throne-like sofa when greeting guests.

Born in 1952, Abdel-Jalil had taken some tentative steps to establish the rule of law even under Gaddafi, once famously declaring before the Colonel himself that: “I make my decisions based on the law.” He had served as a judge for many years after studying Sharia and Civil Law at the University of Libya. After working as chief justice in Al Baida, he was appointed Minister of Justice in 2007.

Some suggest that, given his Sharia studies, Abdel-Jalil might be an Islamic fundamentalist. If so, however, all judges in Islamic countries must be fundamentalists, because all are educated in both civil law and sharia. But how he deals with the Islamic fundamentalists in Benghazi, Al-Baida, Delna and other areas who claim that their contribution to the victory requires them to have a powerful say in the new order will go a long way towards determining Libya’s future.

Obstacles overcome

Abdel-Jalil does not give the impression that he wants to become Libya’s first post-Gaddafi president. But if Abdel-Jalil is a man of ideals, Mahmoud Jibril, Chairman of the NTC’s Executive Board, is a man of action. Born in Benghazi in 1952, he obtained his masters and doctoral degrees at the University of Pittsburgh, after graduating from Cairo University. He also has served as a management consultant in Arab countries, and, for a time, was involved in asset management for Sheikha Mozah, the politically active wife of the Emir of Qatar. In Gaddafi’s regime, he headed the National Council and the National Economic Development Board.

The biggest hit that the NTC’s provisional government has taken since its establishment was the assassination of the rebel military commander, Major General Abdul Fatah Younis. The circumstances behind his killing remain unclear, but his death caused a government reshuffle, with finance and oil minister Ali Tarhouni and foreign minister Ali al-Issawi ousted.

Al-Issawi’s removal may have been tied to reports that he issued the instructions for the arrest of Younis shortly before the assassination. The killing had spurred fear that tribal warfare would break out, as Younis was part of the powerful Obaida tribe, which lives around Benghazi. The provisional government, by preventing a violent outbreak of internecine tribal violence, showed that it might be able to keep a lid on the types of animosity that savaged Iraq. Maintaining the cooperation of the dominant tribes in each region will be essential to building a stable post-Gaddafi Libya.

Although the NTC is not fully unified, Abdel-Jalil and Jibril are playing their respective roles in an effort to solidify domestic organisation and secure international support. Other players include the son of King Idris and the son of Omar Mukhtar, the hero who led the resistance movement against Italy long ago. But none of these ancestral claims to power appear capable of sublimating the will of the people to elect their future leader democratically.

Gaddafi ousted King Idris 42 years ago without bloodshed. Until the stunning rebel advance into Tripoli it had seemed intent on enacting a kind of desert Götterdämmerung, with his regime going down in flames. That no longer seems likely, and the NTC will now need to begin actually governing the country. The trials that it has endured thus far have probably left it in a better position to lead a successful democratic transition than most observers realise.

Yuriko Koike, Japan’s former Minister of Defense and National Security Adviser, is Chairman of the Executive Council of the Liberal Democratic Party.

A version of this article was first published by Project Syndicate.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.