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Sunday, October 13, 2024

Libya: a dangerous line of division

65 years ago, on 1 September 1969, a group of officers led by 27-year-old communications captain Muammar Gaddafi came to power in Libya. A week later, this almost unknown man from a poor Bedouin family would rise to the rank of colonel and rule the country for 42 years. Muammar Al-Qadhafi was wrong to believe that the people were on his side. But the people of Libya were wrong to think that the dictator’s death would bring them relief. After a three-year ceasefire and attempts to establish a government legitimate to all factions, the country fell back into the chaos of a civil war that lasted until 2020. Today Libya has a fragile peace and two governments, in the west in Tripoli and in the east in Tobruk. 

The first presidential elections in Libya’s history were to be held in December 2021, but due to the ‘unstable situation’ they never took place. And there is no prospect of them taking place in the near future. The Libyan political crisis, consistently moving from stagnation to transformation, is preventing the normal development of statehood, the restoration of civil peace and the economic prosperity of the rich North African country. Let us try to understand why this happened, what influence the internal elite struggle has on the situation in the country, and what is the role of external players in these processes.

In this article Ascolta analyses the internal political situation in Libya after more than a decade of war, as well as attempts to establish and maintain a fragile peace. Such a look at Libya – once one of the most developed and stable countries in the region – allows us to understand a number of political, social and economic processes that have an impact on both North Africa and the geopolitical situation as a whole. 

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65 years ago, on 1 September 1969, a group of officers led by 27-year-old communications captain Muammar Gaddafi came to power in Libya. A week later, this almost unknown man from a poor Bedouin family would rise to the rank of colonel and rule the country for 42 years. Muammar Al-Qadhafi was wrong to believe that the people were on his side. But the people of Libya were wrong to think that the dictator’s death would bring them relief. After a three-year ceasefire and attempts to establish a government legitimate to all factions, the country fell back into the chaos of a civil war that lasted until 2020. Today Libya has a fragile peace and two governments, in the west in Tripoli and in the east in Tobruk. 

The first presidential elections in Libya’s history were to be held in December 2021, but due to the ‘unstable situation’ they never took place. And there is no prospect of them taking place in the near future. The Libyan political crisis, consistently moving from stagnation to transformation, is preventing the normal development of statehood, the restoration of civil peace and the economic prosperity of the rich North African country. Let us try to understand why this happened, what influence the internal elite struggle has on the situation in the country, and what is the role of external players in these processes.

In this article Ascolta analyses the internal political situation in Libya after more than a decade of war, as well as attempts to establish and maintain a fragile peace. Such a look at Libya – once one of the most developed and stable countries in the region – allows us to understand a number of political, social and economic processes that have an impact on both North Africa and the geopolitical situation as a whole. 

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