The General National Congress on May 5 will debate its proposed Isolation Law, which seeks to bar high-ranking officials that served under Gadhafi from holding political office or being involved in future governments. The law would allow lower-ranking officials and bureaucrats, considering their collective experience in governance and administration, to help in rebuilding the institutions of the Libyan state. Even these former officials, however, would be barred from holding positions of authority. The militias oppose the potential inclusion in government of lingering elements of the Gadhafi regime, believing them to pose a threat to the revolution. This has been the basis of many of the protests, ongoing sit-ins and demonstrations around government ministry buildings.
The transitional government in Tripoli faces a dilemma: The government does not want to militarily engage the militias and disband them, but it cannot allow the militias to impede its drive to draft laws and a new constitution. Further complicating the issue, many of Libya's current politicians, including General National Congress President Mohammed Magarief and a number of the deputy ministers in his Cabinet, held posts in the Gadhafi government. Adhering to the strict demands of the militias would mean removing a substantial number of the technocrats who have been helping oversee Libya's transition since 2011. It would also establish a precedent of popularly elected members of Congress bowing to the demands of self-designated guardians of the revolution.
Adding to the difficulty, Libyan lawmakers are split among themselves, with some pushing for restrictions similar to those being advocated by the revolutionaries while others fear that the Isolation Law might be used to limit political competition and freedoms, similar to the debaathification laws in Iraq.
Ideology aside, the debate has become a useful proxy battle for militia groups that increasingly have to justify their desired independence to an impatient government. The debate over the Isolation Law is an attempt by Libya's militia groups to demonstrate that their position within Libyan society is a crucial one; that beyond protecting oil pipelines, they are the only actors capable of ensuring that the country does not backslide into an imitation of Gadhafi-era politics and centralization of power.
An Uneasy Partnership
Tripoli out of necessity established a complex and uneasy relationship with its revolutionary fighters in order to help maintain some semblance of security following the collapse of the Gadhafi regime. The nominative capital in Tripoli lacks the capabilities to meaningfully secure large swathes of the country with military or police, let alone to take on the militias directly. Thus an arrangement of sorts has taken shape: Tripoli holds the country's oil wealth and distributes it to the militias, which hold the guns.
This arrangement does little to satisfy the political ambitions of either side. Tripoli's imperative is to bring the militias — and the ideological and regional power centers they represent — to heel, and to prevent an overt challenge to its authority. Tripoli's main method of containment has been to keep the militias financially dependent on the government, incentivizing their cooperation in securing the country's vital oil and natural gas infrastructure and in maintaining a general sense of law and order around places like Tripoli. This partnership cannot endure indefinitely, however, and the transitional General National Congress has several times indicated its intent to dismantle those militias that have not accepted Tripoli's authority, while integrating those that have into national military and police forces.
The biggest challenge to continued cooperation between the militias and the central government has been the refusal of the revolutionaries to be seen simply as a salaried security force. There have been dozens of instances of militias occupying government offices, and even the parliamentary buildings themselves, in protest against legislation or political decisions. Although the revolutionaries often bring in technicals — pickup trucks bearing heavy crew-served weapons — they rarely engage in direct violent conflict with the government. This is partly because of the economic links between the government and the militias, but it also reveals a genuine desire on behalf of most to avoid pushing the country toward the brink of war. But the constant halt in legislative activities brought about by the militias' interference irks many politicians — Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan vowed on April 29 that his government would not allow the actions of armed militia men to impede the political process.
Libyan lawmakers must also deal with the fluid membership that characterizes many of the militias. Many revolutionaries claim membership in more than one militia, including government-aligned groups, in order to maximize their payouts. The best-organized and most structured revolutionary councils are often associated with regional power centers such as Misurata and Benghazi, competitors to Tripoli's authority who don't necessarily mind seeing the central government under pressure and otherwise distracted.
Libya's Restricted Timetable
A year and a half after the death of former leader Moammar Gadhafi, Libya has yet to begin work on a constitution or a set of election laws that could lead to a permanent government authority. However, Libya has also experienced its share of successes. The country held generally free and fair elections in July 2012, and the government says Libya has managed to return to pre-war levels of oil production. But significant hurdles remain. A three-man committee formed in February that was tasked with drafting an election law within a month has yet to make any tangible progress.
The uncertainty over the future participation in government of members of the Gadhafi regime is at the heart of Libya's problems, and it is stalling all other decisions regarding elections and the drafting of a permanent constitution.
The government in Tripoli faces a deadline. It was elected with the expectation of transitioning to a permanent government by 2013. However, given a choice between the risk of military confrontation with its revolutionaries or protracted political stalemates, it is unlikely that the General National Congress will call the militias outside its buildings on their bluff. A more likely compromise would come from a continued accommodation of the country's militias — guaranteeing short-term stability but at the risk of Tripoli's national control — a decision that could have serious consequences given the rising instability in the region.
