Power Shifts In Libya, Transition Could Be Bumpy

[sasha031]

If the popular uprising in Libya succeeds, and protesters drive leader Moammar Gadhafi from power, the transition could be far from smooth. Gadhafi's political genius has been his skill in creating a state that revolves completely around him while claiming that he has no formal role in government and is simply an adviser to the people.During his 42-year reign, Gadhafi has dismantled nearly all the state institutions of the former monarchy he overthrew in 1969, creating a form of government that only functions because of massive amounts of oil money, political repression and his own skills in playing off competing interests that might challenge his grip on power.
Professor Udo Steinbach at the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies at the Philipps University in Marburg, Germany, says Gadhafi "created a Libya of two systems — one built around Gadhafi, his sons and his family, the other around the 'people's committees.' "
Gadhafi sat at the center of both systems; the first controlled the power and money, the second controlled the people.Officially, the roughly 6 million citizens of Libya are ruled by a bewildering array of people's committees, from local neighborhoods right up to the national level. Many of these committees were either ineffective talking shops or had overlapping or contradictory responsibilities, creating a system where nobody knew who was responsible for anything, and who was supposed to be in control. Except that everyone knew who was really making the decisions — Gadhafi.

Although portrayed as a revolutionary system of giving direct control of the state to the people themselves, Dr. Alia Brahimi of the London School of Economics says the system "enshrines inherent suspicion of state bureaucracies and institutions, and reinforced Gadhafi's divide-and-rule strategy," effectively preventing the development of any centers of power that could have challenged his leadership.
In the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, the armed forces were a source of national cohesion and stability — but Steinbach says that resource would be not available in Libya since the army is "practically useless" and Gadhafi "has divided it using the tribal system. It was never a national army in the true sense."
"Gadhafi was always suspicious of the army as a potential rival power base," says Brahimi, "and his rule has been riven with coup attempts, so the army has been deliberately emasculated and made powerless by Gadhafi."
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/26/134062573/if-power-shifts-in-libya-transition-could-be-bum
a good article, I particularly like the last paragraph,

"Obviously there are tough times ahead," says Brahimi. "It's an unusual level of repression over an unusually long period of time." But she sees grounds for optimism;
"There are a great number of intellectuals and a great number of very capable people in both Benghazi and Tripoli who are democratic reformers committed to rebuilding their country," she says. We should not underestimate the power of their message, she adds. "The notion of restoring human rights and democracy will find wide resonance in a society that has been kept in such isolation and under such repression for such a long time."

[David__77]

1. People should be wary of ossified state institutions.

Why shouldn't there be more direct democracy? People should be involved in governing on a daily basis, not just on election day.