Libya: The NTC’s Crisis of Legitimacy

A new report published last week by Ian Martin, United Nations Special Representative to Libya, has laid bare the full extent of the challenges facing the north African nation as it struggles to adjust to life after Colonel Gaddafi. Discussing its findings in front of a UN Security Council panel last week, Martin explained that the country was still grappling with the “deep-rooted legacy” of Gaddafi’s 40-year rule, the main features of which he identified as “weak, at times absent, state institutions, coupled with the long absence of political parties and civil society organizations”. This, he added somewhat euphemistically, rendered the country’s transition to democracy “more difficult”.

In fact, if it is occurring at all, that transition is barely detectable. The largest single factor obstructing Libya’s advance is the fact that the Tripoli-based provisional authority, the National Transitional Council (NTC), possesses no more than a shred of popular democratic legitimacy.

In the six months since the toppling of the Gaddafi regime, no state-level or nationwide elections have been held, while the proposed timetable for elections to a representative parliament or assembly means that the ratification of a new constitution will be delayed until the middle of 2013 at the earliest. What is more, the NTC has done little to revive Libya’s flagging economy, nor proved itself capable of establishing a reliable and effective security force to tackle growing criminal activity.

Bani Walid

That the NTC is suffering from a serious crisis of legitimacy has become all the more apparent since the turn of the year, as violent confrontations between various militia groups have grown in frequency and intensity. The current epicentre of these confrontations is the town of Bani Walid. A former Gaddafi stronghold located about 100 miles south of Tripoli, Bani Walid was also the last of Libya’s major population centres to fall to the rebel forces during the revolution. Now, for the past ten days, it has been the scene of a series of deadly skirmishes between government units and tribal fighters.

The situation in Bani Walid has become so intense that some fear it could reignite civil war. This fear prompted NTC Defence Minister, Osama Jueili, to visit the town over the weekend in an attempt to reassure Libyans in other parts of the country that the government was not letting things get out of hand. “There were just some armed clashes”, he told the London-based Sunday Telegraph, adding “it quickly came to an end. We are now fully in control.” That assertion has yet to be properly substantiated.

One of the things which makes the confrontation at Bani Walid potentially so explosive is that it is the base of the Warfalla tribe, the largest and most influential in Libya. The Warfalla have never been fully reconciled to the post-Gaddafi government. This is in part because it has a large Bedouin component, the ethnic grouping to which Gaddafi himself belonged. Indeed, there have been reports that in the early days of the fighting Warfalla combatants raised Gaddafi’s green flag in the city centre, which – predictably – helped fuel the suspicion that the men involved in the rebellion were Gaddafi loyalists and, as such, intractably opposed to the NTC, NATO and Western notions of liberal democracy.

An “atmosphere of deprivation and hatred”

However, it would be reductive to dismiss the Bani Walid rebellion as simply an expression of support for Gadaffi’s deposed regime, not least because similar displays of popular discontent have been witnessed in other parts of the country.

The most notable incident occurred in Benghazi where students staged a 4000-strong protest against a visit from the NTC deputy head Abdel Hafiz Ghoga. Such was the strength of feeling that within days, Ghoga – who had served under Gaddafi – resigned from his post. Upon his departure, he remarked that an “atmosphere of deprivation and hatred” had developed which threatened “the consensus (and) the highest national interests”.

In one sense, it was almost inevitable that poisonous divisions sown during the Gaddafi years and compounded throughout the long, bloody months of the civil war would continue on into the new Libya. A new report – the Battle for Libya: killing, disappearances and torture – recently published by Amnesty International examines in detail the extraordinary cruelty and brutality with which both sides conducted themselves last year.

Although few observers could be in any doubt about just how ruthless and violent Gaddafi’s forces were, many will be surprised to find that garrisons associated with the NTC were as equally unforgiving. “Opposition fighters and supporters have abducted, arbitrarily detained, tortured and killed former members of the security forces, suspected Gaddafi loyalists, captured soldiers and foreign nationals wrongly suspected of being mercenaries fighting on behalf of Gaddafi forces”, the reports reads. “No independent or credible investigations are known to have been carried out by the NTC, nor effective measures taken to hold to account those responsible for these abuses.”

With that in mind, it is not difficult to understand why the NTC commands so little loyalty among ordinary Libyans. Neither is it at all surprising that its authority seems to be draining away by the day.

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