Exit Gaddafi
So, Gaddafi is gone. One of the world's most flamboyant, strangest, and altogether craziest dictators is now not only out of office, he's finally departed this world for the next.
This is a time of celebration for the people of Libya, and for those who believed in the Arab Spring. It's a moment to reflect on how far the people of Libya have brought themselves in these past months.
But it's also a time to ask what their future is going to hold. Gaddafi is gone, but that doesn't mean that everything is going to start coming up roses. A lot of people are asking questions about what happens next, and are feeling very nervous by the answers they're getting. Here are the questions I think the Libyan people should be asking themselves now:
Who's Running the Office? A lot of people are asking who is going to be in charge of Libya now that this is over, how new leaders will be chosen or elected, and how the state of Libya will evolve. Although important, those are probably not the most important questions to ask now.
Thousands of people formerly from Gaddafi's government are now persona non grata in Libya. Many of them were cruel, venal, and corrupt. But they also did a variety of useful tasks, keeping the water running, keeping the electricity on, scheduling road construction, that kind of thing. Someone has to step up to the plate and take that job over now, and that's not always an easy thing. Collecting the trash and sweeping the streets is hardly glamorous work. It's not what comes to mind when you think of revolutionary government. But it has to get done.
The vital question for Libyan government now is probably not how the big things are going to get done, laws passed and justice restored, plenty of people are working on that. It's how they're going to keep the system that sustains the state running before the inertia that's keeping things in motion now runs out.
Who Gets the Spoils? It's obvious that Gaddafi's family and his closest confidants, having risked everything in a civil war, are not going to be keeping much of the wealth and power they've accumulated over the years. The question now becomes: who will? A lot of this is metaphysical - Qaddafi hoarded power which will now have to be distributed to a new government and new ministries. But he also hoarded material goods as did many people in his close circle. Things like cars and private military vehicles are easy to deal with, but not so easy are things like physical property and capital.
Does the government just inherit all property sequestered by various friends of the regime? Does it get shared out? Is it distributed for local use or for national? How about companies? Do they get nationalized? Privatized? And who runs them?
An early test for any regime like this is to see where the spoils go. It will be very tempting for various people to enrich themselves at the till now that they've opened it up. A good indication as to what Libya will do with its future can be drawn from what they decide to do with the riches of the past. If you start seeing members of the new government driving around in Gaddafi's cars, well, I wouldn't buy into Libyan bonds at that point.
Who Builds the Army? The largest problem facing Libya may not be the leftover Gaddafi loyalists, but various unhappy rebel groups. There's a large foreign perception that the rebels in the east did most of the talking, and the rebels in the west most of the fighting. Certainly most of the combat occurred in the western mountain regions and around Misrata. If the rebel council in Benghazi starts taking most of the credit, the western rebels might take things into their own hands.
The greatest challenge for post-war nations is often figuring out how to disarm the bands of soldiers who ended up fighting in it. There are simply too many groups, too many organizations and ethnic tribes, all of them with weapons, for things to work out quite so easily. One of the problem with war-torn, badly organized, and lightly populated nations it that it becomes very easy for any group that feels maligned to take their weapons, go out into desert, and declare war on the government.
Remaining to the government is the challenge of somehow establishing their monopoly on force, roping in all (or at least a solid majority) of the groups that could cause them trouble. Libya is now a country awash with rebel groups, armed, experienced in their own form of warfare, who have just lost the cause that kept them moving in one direction. Someone better figure out how to establish a new direction that they can compromise on fast, or else you could be looking at Yugoslavia all over again.
This is a time of celebration for the people of Libya, and for those who believed in the Arab Spring. It's a moment to reflect on how far the people of Libya have brought themselves in these past months.
But it's also a time to ask what their future is going to hold. Gaddafi is gone, but that doesn't mean that everything is going to start coming up roses. A lot of people are asking questions about what happens next, and are feeling very nervous by the answers they're getting. Here are the questions I think the Libyan people should be asking themselves now:
Who's Running the Office? A lot of people are asking who is going to be in charge of Libya now that this is over, how new leaders will be chosen or elected, and how the state of Libya will evolve. Although important, those are probably not the most important questions to ask now.
Thousands of people formerly from Gaddafi's government are now persona non grata in Libya. Many of them were cruel, venal, and corrupt. But they also did a variety of useful tasks, keeping the water running, keeping the electricity on, scheduling road construction, that kind of thing. Someone has to step up to the plate and take that job over now, and that's not always an easy thing. Collecting the trash and sweeping the streets is hardly glamorous work. It's not what comes to mind when you think of revolutionary government. But it has to get done.
The vital question for Libyan government now is probably not how the big things are going to get done, laws passed and justice restored, plenty of people are working on that. It's how they're going to keep the system that sustains the state running before the inertia that's keeping things in motion now runs out.
Who Gets the Spoils? It's obvious that Gaddafi's family and his closest confidants, having risked everything in a civil war, are not going to be keeping much of the wealth and power they've accumulated over the years. The question now becomes: who will? A lot of this is metaphysical - Qaddafi hoarded power which will now have to be distributed to a new government and new ministries. But he also hoarded material goods as did many people in his close circle. Things like cars and private military vehicles are easy to deal with, but not so easy are things like physical property and capital.
Does the government just inherit all property sequestered by various friends of the regime? Does it get shared out? Is it distributed for local use or for national? How about companies? Do they get nationalized? Privatized? And who runs them?
An early test for any regime like this is to see where the spoils go. It will be very tempting for various people to enrich themselves at the till now that they've opened it up. A good indication as to what Libya will do with its future can be drawn from what they decide to do with the riches of the past. If you start seeing members of the new government driving around in Gaddafi's cars, well, I wouldn't buy into Libyan bonds at that point.
Who Builds the Army? The largest problem facing Libya may not be the leftover Gaddafi loyalists, but various unhappy rebel groups. There's a large foreign perception that the rebels in the east did most of the talking, and the rebels in the west most of the fighting. Certainly most of the combat occurred in the western mountain regions and around Misrata. If the rebel council in Benghazi starts taking most of the credit, the western rebels might take things into their own hands.
The greatest challenge for post-war nations is often figuring out how to disarm the bands of soldiers who ended up fighting in it. There are simply too many groups, too many organizations and ethnic tribes, all of them with weapons, for things to work out quite so easily. One of the problem with war-torn, badly organized, and lightly populated nations it that it becomes very easy for any group that feels maligned to take their weapons, go out into desert, and declare war on the government.
Remaining to the government is the challenge of somehow establishing their monopoly on force, roping in all (or at least a solid majority) of the groups that could cause them trouble. Libya is now a country awash with rebel groups, armed, experienced in their own form of warfare, who have just lost the cause that kept them moving in one direction. Someone better figure out how to establish a new direction that they can compromise on fast, or else you could be looking at Yugoslavia all over again.