The Initiation of a New Libya
Well, there's cause for celebration. For Libya, after all it's been through - though the story isn't ended quite just yet - and for the world at large.Libyans, through the democratic process of an election has pulled back from the anticipated brink of becoming an Islamist-ruled state. Mahmoud Jibril, who leads the National Forces Alliance, appears to have been successful in persuading Libyans that choosing his party and himself as (extended temporary) leader was wiser than voting in the majority for the Justice and Construction party of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The coalition government represented by the National Forces Alliance representing almost 60 moderate
secular and Islamist parties appears to have won. Mahmoud Jibril, trained in the United States, and who joined Moammar Ghadafi's government as an economic expert, became interim prime minister when he joined the rebels.
He has succeeded, though he was a Ghadafi loyalist, where in Egypt the Hosni Mubarak one-time prime minister Ahmed Shafiq failed.
Where in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood succeeded with the election to the presidency of Mohammed Mursi, in Libya the Muslim Brotherhood suffered an electoral loss. The new National Congress will be represented by a majority-voted National Forces Alliance; in central Tripoli winning 46,000 votes against 4,000 for the Muslim Brotherhood, a stunning reversal of early expectations.
Mahmoud Jibril is credited with having been successful on behalf of the revolution in persuading NATO to support the rebels by declaring the no-fly zone, allowing the disorganized rebel militias to be protected from the regime's artillery. His alliance with the former regime was not seen as someone who had complete allegiance to the regime itself, but to the country, in improving the economic situation under the old regime.
As a member of the most populous clan he had their support as well. He appears to plan to remain in office for a limited amount of time, planning to oversee the drafting of a constitution, and then calling another election. "The NFA is full of qualified people. I might play just a consultant role. It is the effectiveness of the role that matters, not the role itself." Modest to a fault?
None of this answers to the ongoing problems of the various tribes and clans still refusing to hand over their arms. None of this yet provides a solution to the tribal animosities that prevail, and the unwillingness of the distant reaches of the country to respect a central controlling government authority. Not does it reflect an ability of the nascent government to persuade fanatical Islamists that they must respect the sectarian divide of those whom they consider heretics.
It does, however, represent a hopeful start in a region of Africa that has begun go unravel from duly constituted governments to failed states incapable of exerting control and authority, being invaded by foreign Islamists intent on converting the entire region to another reflection of Islam entirely through the exercise of violent jihad.
Labels: Conflict, Democracy, Human Relations, Islamism, Libya
posted by Pieface @ Monday, July 16, 2012
<< Home