At least 2,000 Libyan political and tribal leaders met March 6 near Benghazi and stated their desire for semi-autonomy in the country's eastern region. Delegates at the conference, which was held to discuss the federalism issue, also announced plans to form a new governing council for eastern Libya with Sheikh Ahmed al-Zubair as its leader. Al-Zubair, whose name has also been reported as Ahmed al-Senussi, was a longtime political prisoner under former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and is reportedly a descendant of former Libyan King Idriss al-Senussi.

Though scant details have been released about the nature of the envisioned new region, eastern autonomy represents the most serious threat to Libya's central authority — the National Transitional Council (NTC) and the interim government it appointed — since the fall of Gadhafi. Statements by the NTC and the government made ahead of the planned Benghazi gathering have demonstrated that the government had tried to pre-empt any push to weaken the country's central authority by issuing its own decentralization plans. Regardless of what plan is eventually adopted, power will not be concentrated in Tripoli to the same degree as under Gadhafi. The question remaining is how closely knit the country's future autonomous regions will be.

The eastern Libyan group that appears to be driving the federalism demands is the National Federal Union (NFU). The NFU is not a secessionist movement, and it is unclear how much support the group holds. The NFU is calling for a return to the system that existed under Libya's former monarchy. Its 1951 constitution divided Libya into three administrative regions that were relics of Italian colonial rule: Tripolitania in the west, Cyrenaica in the east and southeast and Fezzan in the remainder of the country's desert interior. Though these divisions (known in Arabic as "Tarabulus," "Barqa" and "Fizzan," respectively) formally ceased to exist during Gadhafi's reign, they still are part of the nation's collective memory.

Under the NFU's purported vision, the group would oversee the establishment of an autonomous Barqah province with its own capital, parliament, police and courts. The other two regions would follow Barqah's lead. One of the NFU's followers has compared the group's plan to the U.S. system of states and a federal government, though it appears that the group is advocating that individual provinces hold more power.

Trouble for the NTC

The fact that opposition is coming from Libya's east is notable given the NTC's origins in Benghazi. Though the council began as an eastern-based political movement, it came to represent all of Libya during the war against the Gadhafi regime. Now that Gadhafi is gone, the NTC's aim is not to redistribute power and wealth back to eastern Libya but rather to fill the void created by the former leader's departure. As a result, NTC leaders are being pulled in several directions.

Organizers of the planned March 6 gathering in Benghazi have taken issue with the NTC's latest draft proposal for the country's constituent assembly, which is expected to be elected in June and to draft a new constitution in July. Under the NTC plan, the east would only hold 60 of 200 seats, compared to 102 for the west. This signals to many eastern Libyans that they would once again be subservient to Tripoli. In fact, the draft plan is laid out logically according to the country's population distribution, but it angers the NTC's own power base.

To counter the push for federalism, the NTC is touting its own decentralization plans. The plans allocate more power to the central government than the NFU plans, but the NTC's proposal still tacitly admits that the old system of strong central governance is over. The current power struggle is over how much authority the country's respective autonomous regions will possess.

Risks to Fragmentation

The NFU's plan for autonomy in the east will not be adopted anytime soon. The NTC has made it clear that it opposes such moves, and signs of opposition to the plan within eastern Libya have emerged. But should the federalization push eventually gain traction to the point where the country begins to fragment, Libya would be at risk of splintering into far more than just three autonomous regions. Highlighting this risk, there have recently been several examples of fraying ties between armed groups across the country:

• The western coastal city of Misurata, which has long existed as a de facto city-state of its own, recently completed local elections to replace a city council that was nominally loyal to the NTC.

• Armed tribesmen in the central town of Bani Walid expelled a pro-NTC militia from local power in February and currently remain in control of the former pro-Gadhafi stronghold.

• Tribesmen in the southeastern area of Kufra have been fighting for the past three weeks. The NTC has only been able to issue statements in attempts to resolve the matter.

• The Nafusa Mountains lie beyond the control of anyone from the coast, and the region has experienced power struggles among its various armed militias.

While geographically part of the west, Tripoli itself remains under the control of several armed militias from different parts of the country, each of which maintains its own set of alliances — and each of which have repeatedly ignored the NTC's calls to disarm. Were Libya to begin unraveling under the weight of a federalist movement, the city would experience its own internal struggle.

Though calls for federalism are loudest in Benghazi — the heart of the revolution and the area where residents held the highest expectations for a post-Gadhafi Libya — not everyone in the east supports the NFU plans. The reception garnered by the March 6 gathering in Benghazi will say much about the general sentiment in eastern Libya.

Outside the east, other political groups are forming without demands for the same sort of immediate establishment of federalism. New political parties are frequently being created — four in the past week alone — advocating plans in line with the NTC's proposal. The Muslim Brotherhood's branch in Libya announced the formation of its own party March 3, and it too has not come out in support of the NFU plan. Most of the parties are instead focusing their efforts on competing in the planned June constituent assembly elections in hopes of influencing formation of the country's new constitution in July.