By Chris Stephen, Massoud Derhally and Flavia Krause-Jackson - Aug 31, 2011 2:01 PM GMT+1000
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the first cabinet minister to break ties with Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, has won praise from his countrymen and Western leaders. Even so, it is unlikely that he will lead Libya after its transition from a dictatorship to a promised democracy.
Libyan rebel leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil pauses during a press conference on in Benghazi. Photographer: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Images
The 59-year-old former judge -- who created a government- in-waiting from a loose collection of exiles, nationalists and regime defectors -- is “a wise and respected man of integrity,” said Hassan Tatanaki, 53, a Cairo-based Libyan oil- industry businessman whose family is spread among Tripoli, Cairo, London and Abu Dhabi.
“His only problem is that he is not into the political wheeling and dealing and maneuvering,” Tatanaki said in an Aug. 26 interview. “He’s someone who calls a spade a spade, and that sometimes is a problem.”
Even under the Qaddafi’s four-decade iron rule, Abdel Jalil developed a reputation as the judge who didn’t shy away from ruling against the regime. That attitude paradoxically led to his promotion to justice minister in 2007 by Qaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, who was in his final year of a doctorate at the London School of Economics and fancied himself as a reformer.
For a few years, Abdel Jalil worked to improve Libya’s criminal code and human-rights track record. U.S. diplomats, in an embassy cable released this year by the group WikiLeaks, said he was “considered to be a fair-minded technocrat.”
Defying the Regime
Then in January 2010, he did something unexpected that astonished Libyans. Appearing on the ever-compliant state television, he criticized the regime for failing to uphold promises on reform. Even as he steered clear of direct references to Qaddafi, his resignation as justice minister was the pebble that set off an avalanche.
The kind of candor that won a place in the hearts of Libyans might not find a place in the leadership once his creation, the rebel’s National Transitional Council, has carried out its mission of preparing for elections in a nation lacking a constitution. Before succumbing to Qaddafi’s bloodless military coup in 1969, Libya was a short-lived monarchy and an Italian colony.
The NTC was formed on Feb. 27, 2011, in a Benghazi courthouse, and on March 5 issued a statement calling itself “the only legitimate body representing the people of Libya and the Libyan state.” Still, it took more than four months of lobbying to persuade the U.S. and 31 other nations to agree.
If recognition was achieved, much of the credit lies with Mahmoud Jibril -- prime minister to Abdel Jalil’s chairman. The axis of the NTC revolves around the two men who are of the same age. Should Abdel Jalil step aside, Jibril is his heir apparent.
European Circuit
Flitting between Paris and Rome, Jibril is the public- affairs face of the revolution and spent much of his time working the European circuit in search of aid, diplomatic recognition and the unfreezing of Libyan assets.
It was the U.S.-educated former university professor who led meetings and negotiations with President Nicolas Sarkozy that resulted in France being the first country to publicly assign legitimacy to the NTC as the representative of the Libyan people.
Unlike Abdel Jalil, Jibril had made no public criticism of the Qaddafi regime yet quickly joined the uprising and helped form the NTC. His career displayed his ability to walk the line between pleasing both a dictator at home and juggling a career abroad as independent thinker.
Qaddafi, who was undergoing full-rehabilitation with the West, appointed him head of Libya’s National Economic Development Board in 2007.
Foreign Credentials
A graduate from Cairo University, Jibril earned a master’s degree in political science from the University of Pittsburgh and a doctorate in the same subject at the same university in 1985. He went on to teach business practice at the university and wrote 10 books on strategic planning.
The different styles of Abdel Jalil and Jibril were put on display when they dealt with the still-unexplained July 28 assassination of Abdel Fattah Younis, the rebel military chief and regime defector. Abdel Jalil held an incoherent news conference where he hinted at the involvement of pro-Qaddafi forces and promised an investigation, which wrapped up inconclusively. Jibril remained silent.
‘Jury Is Out’
“They are good people and they mean well, but the jury is out on both on them,” said Omar Turbi, an NTC adviser.
While a political future is assured for the NTC members who may want that, the top job will be reserved to someone yet to emerge, according Michele Dunne, a former specialist on Middle East affairs at the U.S. State Department and White House. The ability to mobilize assistance from abroad, including fluency in English, might not be what Libyans look for when casting their votes.
“The leaders of today won’t be those of Libya’s tomorrow,” said Dunne, who heads the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “That chapter is yet to be written.”
European leaders such as Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, who went as far as kissing Qaddafi’s hand at a televised March 2010 summit, may struggle to form a bond with the new leadership. For Italy, the challenge will be to prevent France from stealing deals after Sarkozy led in the Western intervention on behalf of the rebels.
Other Prospects
As Western powers jockey for oil deals and reconstruction profits, some are looking beyond the NTC’s leadership. From the non-rebel camp, Abdel Salam Jalloud, Qaddafi’s former right-hand man until a falling out in the 1990s, has already won plaudits in Italy, whose government is seeking to preserve Eni SpA’s position as the biggest investor in Libya.
As Tripoli fell into rebel hands, Jalloud -- who helped Qaddafi in the 1969 coup that brought him to power -- fled to Rome, where he announced he will form a secular, liberal party for Libya.
“I won’t make the mistake of picking who might be the best leader for the Libyans, but I do believe that Jalloud has excellent features and he can be one of the protagonists of the new Libya,” Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters in Rome on Aug. 23. “He had a balanced role and he did not stain his hands with blood.”
-- With assistance from Caroline Alexander in London. Editors: Terry Atlas, Jim Rubin.
To contact the reporters on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson in Washington at fjackson@bloomberg.net; Massoud A. Derhally in Beirut at mderhally@bloomberg.net; Christopher Stephen in Libya at cstephen9@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net; Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net
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