Libya confounds the many sceptics

When the rebellion against Muammer Gaddafi erupted last year, few gave the opposition movement much of a chance. The popular view was that the rebels were a disorganised tribal rabble who could not hope to demolish the Libyan leader’s supposedly coup-proof regime.

A year on, and not only have Col Gaddafi and his henchmen been consigned firmly to history, but Libya’s subsequent transformation has continued to defy the sceptics. Last weekend’s general election – the first real poll to be held in the country – was another encouraging sign. It went off largely without incident, with turnout high and violence minimal. Thus far at least, there seems to be little evidence of fraud.

The result, too, bucked a regional trend: that of Islamist parties triumphing at the polls. The Alliance of National Forces, a coalition of ostensibly liberal groups under Mahmoud Jibril, appears to have scored a resounding victory – at least in the competition for the 80 seats out of 200 in the general assembly that are awarded to parties under a list system.

While that does not guarantee them an overall victory – the remaining 120 seats are reserved for those standing as independents – it makes such an outcome considerably more likely.

But whatever the final balance of seats, Mr Jibril’s success is welcome, not least because he fought the campaign not on a platform of loose slogans but on a detailed programme of economic and political reform. Whatever government is eventually formed in Tripoli, this will hopefully colour the complexion of policies it pursues.

Even more than its neighbours in Tunisia and Egypt, Libya does not have the luxury of contemplating a long debate about women’s role in society or the political status of religion. Its urgent need is for a restoration of security.

Since Col Gaddafi’s fall, the biggest risk has been that the country might splinter into a patchwork of militia-dominated territories. The baleful example of northern Mali – which is a casualty of the fallout from Libya’s revolution – shows what can happen when ungoverned spaces and private armies are allowed to proliferate. Even now, the possibility of such chaos descending on Libya proper cannot be wholly discounted.

The first priority for the next government must be to inculcate a sense of national purpose, and to build a stable polity in which everyone feels that they have a stake. This means addressing the task of standing down the militias and integrating at least some of their members into an organised national defence force. Only when this is done will it be possible to unlock the interest of foreign and domestic investors. This in turn is vital if Libya’s post Gaddafi advance is to be consolidated.

Source: Financial Times

IMF sees Libya growth skyrocketing 116.6% this year

Economic activity in Libya is likely to rebound this year as the country rebuilds from civil war and oil production increases to levels last seen during Muammar Gaddafi's rule, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.

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conomic activity in Libya is likely to rebound this year as the country rebuilds from civil war and oil production increases to levels last seen during Gaddafi's rule, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.

In a report on Libya's economy conducted by an IMF mission in May but published only now, the Fund forecast growth will skyrocket 116.6% this year, following a contraction of 60% in 2011. Growth next year is expected to ease to 16.5% and 13.2% in 2014, the IMF added.

Such impressive rebounds in growth are not unusual in countries emerging from conflict, as the government pours money into rebuilding projects and pent-up private demand boosts spending.

While Libya's government can afford the current high rates of spending, over the longer term it is not sustainable and will push the budget into deficit from 2015, the IMF estimated.

"A more thorough analysis of sustainability based on the present value of financial assets and future oil extraction indicates that, from 2012, public spending will exceed the sustainable, long-term level by over 10% of GDP," the IMF added.

The IMF warned that continued political uncertainty, insecurity and the possibility of a drop in global oil and gas prices were risks to Libya's outlook.

The oil price at which Libya's budget is balanced has increased to USD 91 per barrel in 2012 from USD 58 a barrel in 2010, and is set to exceed USD 100 a barrel from 2013, the IMF said.

A deeper crisis in the euro zone and sharper slowdown in the world economy could push global oil prices lower, which would be pose challenges for Libya's oil dependent economy, the IMF added.

As Libya's imports return to normal, consumer price inflation should be contained at 10% despite pressure on prices from supply bottlenecks in housing and transportation, the IMF added.

The fund said, however, that a drop in the country's high level of unemployment is not likely without reforms.

Meet Mahmoud Jibril: The Man Who May Be Libya’s First Elected Leader

Following landmark elections this past weekend in Libya, results point to a coalition of moderates and secularists winning the majority of votes. The head of that camp is Mahmoud Jibril, a man once at the heart of the Gaddafi regime who defected to the rebellion last year

JAMES LAWLER DUGGAN / MCT / ZUMA PRESS

Mahmoud Jibril, who heads the centrist National Forces Alliance, holds a press conference in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, on July 8, 2012, one day after the Saturday elections

Back in 2010, TIME paid a visit to Mahmoud Jibril, a U.S.-educated policy wonk in Libya’s capital Tripoli who’d been drafted by Muammar Gaddafi’s government to overhaul the country’s state-run economy after decades of one-man rule. Sitting in his large office in the National Economic Development Board, Jibril laid out a vision for a Western-style government that would transform Libya from a stifling dictatorship into a thriving 21st century country. “There must be a legal frame with division of powers, and the right of free expression,” he told TIME then. “We are very late. We have to shorten the time span of things.”

As it happened, it took a bloody revolution and thousands of deaths, including Gaddafi’s, to shorten the time span for Jibril’s plan — something that seemed unimaginable in 2010. Now, Jibril might finally get his chance to put his vision into practice, thanks to last Saturday’s elections in Libya. Although it could take days for officials to confirm the election results, Jibril’s centrist National Forces Alliance appears certain to have won the vote for a 200-member General National Congress, and while Jibril hasn’t said he intends to be the new leader, the coalition’s victory puts him in place to head Libya’s first elected government in 60 years — and the first to emerge from the Arab Spring that is not dominated by a religious Islamic party.

(PHOTOS: Libyans Turn Out for a Landmark Election)

For the 60-year-old economist with a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pittsburgh, that is a most surprising career trajectory indeed. Having left to study in the U.S. in 1975, Jibril later consulted several Arab governments in economic management and had little thought of returning to Libya. Then in 2007, he was lured home by the one man who appeared capable enough of pushing through drastic reforms — Gaddafi’s hugely powerful son Saif al-Islam. In his new job, Jibril told the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Gene Cretz, that Libya was “opening widely and very fast,” according to a diplomatic cable written by Cretz in 2009, published by WikiLeaks. In a markedly optimistic report, Cretz said Jibril had convinced him that there were lucrative business opportunities for American companies in Libya. “Jibril is a serious interlocutor who ‘gets’ the U.S. perspective,” he wrote.

Jibril believed that change was possible within the Gaddafi regime, something that has haunted him since. Many Libyans still question Jibril’s role as an insider in the dictatorship, as well as the fact that he hails from Libya’s most populous tribe, al-Warfalla, who claimed long allegiance to Gaddafi rule.

But by early 2011, Jibril had concluded that Saif’s ideas of reform — real or not — were doomed, so long as his father and the conservative henchmen surrounding him remained in power. Jibril slipped out of Tripoli in Feb. 2011 and joined the revolution in Benghazi, where he had been raised. Then, he quickly began pushing world leaders to back the rebels. Equally at home in Western capitals (as Cretz had suggested), Jibril clinched formal recognition for the rebels from President Nicolas Sarkozy in a crucial meeting at the Élysée Palace in March 2011, which presaged NATO’s bombing campaign weeks later. In Tripoli, Saif fumed to TIME that his closest associates — chief among them was Jibril — had betrayed him “big time.” But by then, Jibril’s diplomatic footwork had succeeded, and it was the Gaddafi regime, rather than Saif’s reform plan, that was doomed.

Jibril went on to head the rebel leaders’ National Transitional Council, but many of his colleagues criticized him for failing to delegate responsibilities properly. He quit the job after Gaddafi was killed last October, and began plotting his political future — one rooted in part on his huge success in turning last year’s rebellion into a full-scale revolution. “He was instrumental in getting international approval for the rebels, and everyone gives him credit for that,” says Sami Zaptia, managing editor of the Libya Herald, a new English-language online newspaper. Zaptia believes that Jibril’s tribal background makes him ideally suited to drawing Gaddafi’s old loyalists — including many Warfalla — into supporting the new Libya. “I don’t think you will find many people who will dispute Jibril’s skills as a planner, a strategist and a visionary.”

Even with those skills, Jibril’s new job, either as the leader or as a key strategist, will be no cakewalk. With massive oil reserves and only about 6.3 million people, Libya has the cash with which to implement economic reforms — a far different situation from, say, Egypt, which depends heavily on U.S. aid. Yet countless weapons remain in the hands of potentially hostile militia groups. And youth unemployment remains rampant, according to the African Development Bank.

Jibril will begin with one big advantage, however: a ready-made plan for the future, which he drafted as head of Libya’s Economic Development Board, using consultants from Monitor Group in Cambridge, Mass.; Ernst & Young; and the Oxford Group. At the time those groups were heavily criticized by some Libya watchers for believing that it was possible to reform Libya under Gaddafi — a criticism that proved correct. In an interview on the night Gaddafi was killed last October, Jibril told TIME in Tripoli that Gaddafi’s regime had blocked his reform proposals at every turn. “They took everything they received from us and just threw it in the garbage,” he said. He listed among other plans massive tourism development, solar-power and wind-energy projects along Libya’s long Mediterranean coastline, a drastic overhaul of the outdated education system and a program to mobilize millions of underemployed women. “This is a real road map,” he said. “We have the plan ready.” Now it’s time to dust it off.

Source: World Time 

Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/07/11/meet-mahmoud-jibril-the-man-who-may-be-libyas-first-elected-leader/#ixzz20JenJoEa

Top Ten Surprises on Libya’s Election Day

By JUAN COLE

Most Western reporting on Libya is colored by what is in my view a combination of extreme pessimism and sensationalism. It has been suggested that because most reporters don’t stay there for that long, many don’t have a sense of proportion. It is frustrating to have faction-fighting in distant Kufra in the far south color our image of the whole country. Tripoli, a major city of over 2.2 million (think Houston), is not like little distant Kufra, population 60,000 (think Broken Arrow, OK)!

In the run-up to the elections held on Saturday, a lot of the headlines read ‘Libya votes, on the brink’ or had ‘Chaos’ in the title. But actually, as the Libya Herald reports, the election went very, very well (which did not surprise me after my visit to three major cities there in May-June). The NYT post-election headline of ‘Libyans risk violence to vote’ is frankly ridiculous; in most of the country that simply was not true, though it was true in parts of Benghazi. Even then, how many people died in violence in this election? I count two, but in any case it is a small number. In Tripoli, the election was described as a big family wedding, with lots of loud celebration and tears of joy. Here are the top ten surprises of the election for Libya watchers:

1. Turnout was about 60%, with 1.6 million casting their ballots. This high turnout is especially impressive given how confusing the election procedures were, with 3,000 candidates and only 80 seats out of 200 set aside for political parties (most newly formed and not well known).

2. There was relatively little election violence, certainly compared to South Asia, where election day often entails dozens, sometimes hundreds, of deaths. The Libya Herald piece quotes the High Electoral Commission as saying, “…of 1,554 polling centres across the country, 24 were unable to operate, including two in Kufra, six in Sidra and eight in Benghazi.”

3. The remnants of Qaddafi supporters made no trouble, and many went to vote enthusiastically. One of the many wrong predictions made last year by opponents of the revolution was that after it was over, there would be an Iraq-style pro-Qaddafi resistance. It turns out that Qaddafi wasn’t actually popular, and now that he is gone no one is interested in making trouble in his name.

4. One of the last cities to fall to the revolutionaries was Bani Walid, and it was alleged for a long time after the revolution to be in the hands of Qaddafi loyalists. This allegation was always a vast exaggeration. There were only a few militiamen there, who made demonstrations downtown. In fact, if anything, it was the revolutionary militias that controlled a city that somewhat resented them because of their high-handedness. Luke Harding of The Guardian, who bothered actually to go to Bani Walid, found people there as excited about the elections as elsewhere, and eager to combat their city’s reputation as a refuge of former regime loyalists. 46,000 had registered to vote, out of 85,000 inhabitants– i.e. most of those eligible to vote must have registered.

5. The formerly upscale city of Sirte, which had been seen by the revolutionaries as favored by Qaddafi, and near which he made his last stand, decided not to boycott the vote after all, according both to Agence France Press and to the following:

Rena Netjes ‏@RenaNetjes

Corresp alHurraTV in ‪#Sirte‬: “Turnout 70%, women 35-40%. Ppl very very happy to be able to vote for the 1st time” ‪#Lyelect‬.

There are genuine resentments toward Sirte on the part of the revolutionary cities, and locals complain about discrimination of various sorts. They clearly feel that being well represented in the new parliament is a way of gaining a voice and being reintegrated into the new Libya. It was places like Bani Walid and Sirte from which trouble on election day had been expected, and it did not happen.

6. The Muslim fundamentalist parties that were expected to dominate the new parliament may not do so. First of all, only 80 of the 200 seats are allocated to parties, and the liberal party of former head of Qaddafi’s National Economic Development Board, Mahmoud Jibril, is said to be doing well in early returns and exit polls. Because of the large number of independents and uncertainty with whom they will caucus, predictions about the shape of the government are premature. The West is more secular than the east or the south. In Libya, the remnants of the old regime are called ‘seaweed’ or ‘algae’ (tahallub), i.e. the flotsam left behind when the tide recedes. As in Tunisia and Egypt, there has been a lot of debate around what to do with them. They often have a lot of money, and are regrouping to succeed in the new system. Since a lot of prominent Libyan technocrats had been lured back to the country in the past decade, with Qaddafi’s and his son Saif al-Islam’s attempt to open to the West, leaders like Mahmoud Jibril (al-Warfalli) are considered by some to be leftovers, while others see him as someone who went over to the revolution and served as its first transitional prime minister.

7. Despite the faction-fighting that has plagued some desert cities, such as Zintan and Kufra, in southwest Tripolitania and the Fezzan region of Libya, respectively– its third traditional region after Tripolitania and Cyrenaica– went to the polls quietly and peaceably for the most part. Two of the polling stations in feud-ridden Kufra could not open because of tension. Here’s what my Jabal Nafusa and Fezzan twitter feed looked like:

“Women crowds in Zintan for voting …

9:16 AM – 7 Jul 12 via Twitter for iPhone ·

22h Libya.elHurra Libya.elHurra ‏@FreeBenghazi

July7: Election observers at a Zintan polling station. Reports of good turnout from women but no pics yet ‪#Libya‬

20h AC Tripolis AC Tripolis ‏@david_bachmann_

Very big crowd in front of voting room for people from ‪#Ghadames‬ – quite noisy, but relaxed ‪#LyElect‬ ‪#gheryan‬ ‪#Libya‬”

8. A big surprise is that what little election day trouble there was came from the East, from the center of the revolution. Thus, small crowds or small militia contingents attacked or tried to attack polling stations in Ajdabiya, Sidra, Ras Lanouf and Benghazi itself. But aside from a few stations in Sidra and 8 in Benghazi, all of them reopened and some stayed open till midnight to make up for having been closed in the morning. In one incident in Benghazi,pro-election crowds actually drove off a group of states’ rights protesters who want decentralization.

9. Women registered to vote, ran for office, and went to the polling stations in surprisingly high numbers. In some small cities, eyewitnesses thought the women’s lines were much longer than those of the men.

10. Among this generation of Libyans, democracy is really, really popular.

Elections to mark new start for Libya economy

For Tripoli businessman Salem Mohammed, Libya's first elections in a generation on Saturday will pave the way for what he believes the North African country should become - a new Dubai.

"We have oil, we have money, Libya can easily be just like Dubai," the 47 year old, who works in manufacturing, said.

"We just need foreign investors and hopefully they will now start coming and business will boom."

Nine months after the end of Libya's uprising, Mohammed hopes Saturday's election of a national assembly will mark a new start for an economy that stagnated under Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year autocratic rule.

Investors will be closely watching the outcome of the vote - with no indication of a leading contender - to see what it will mean for projects that were frozen during the fighting and for the vast opportunities likely to emerge in an oil-producing nation with the wealth to pay for construction and healthcare.

Libya's new rulers have said no major new concessions would be awarded until after the polls and are reviewing past deals.

Once elected, the new 200-member assembly will appoint a government to replace an interim administration that lacked the mandate to make major decisions, and expectations are for old projects to restart and for new contracts to be signed.

"There are a lot of projects (on standby), everyone wants to settle their projects from before," said Klaus Fodinger, head of the cement division at Austria's Asamer Holding, which resumed operations in Libya in October.

"If there are no institutions, no one to talk to, how do you settle deals from the past? The elections are a crucial event."

Many international businesses came to Libya in recent years, attracted by its huge energy reserves and a population, which although numbering just 6 million, has median incomes much higher than elsewhere in the region.

But the eight-month NATO-backed uprising sent foreigners fleeing.

While oil companies were the first to return and have helped Libya climb back close to pre-war output levels of 1.6 million barrels per day, others have not been as fast.

Government trade delegations from around the world have visited, vying for future contracts. As commercial flights have resumed, businessmen have also jetted in for short stretches. Most companies which had a foot in Libya before have mainly wanted to get their ventures back up and running as they await a clearer political and legal landscape.

Tarek Alwan, managing director of London-based consulting firm SOC Libya, said he had been approached by numerous companies seeking guidance on how to enter the Libyan market.

"Major ones are seriously interested but they have not committed yet because the situation is not fully stable, economically and politically," he said.

"They have been waiting for the elections so this will give them some sort of assurances that there will be proper elected (authority) to represent the country."

WAITING FOR THE GREEN LIGHT

Major construction, such as residential property and hotels, as well as transport projects are untouched since last year, awaiting the green light from the authorities to restart.

"Despite the fact that most major public-sector projects are on hold, there is nonetheless a great deal of planning going on across many ministries and government agencies, and this is a positive sign," said Alex Warren, of research and advisory firm Frontier, which runs The Libya Report business site.

"It suggests that once an elected government is in place, then many projects look set to start or be resumed."

The question is how quickly they will resume. The fasting month of Ramadan, when daily life usually slows, begins shortly after the elections.

The assembly is expected to be named at least two weeks from July 7 after ballot counting is finalised and an appeals process. Within 30 days of its first meeting, it will appoint a new prime minister who will form a government.

"For major projects and contracts, I don't see it really picking up, in terms of new tenders or companies returning, until the last quarter at the earliest," Warren said.

The election is expected to lead to reforms and investors want to know what those policies will be. In May, the economy ministry issued a decree enabling foreign companies to set up joint ventures, branches and representative offices in most sectors, more easily.

"Businesses are looking with great hopes towards the elections," David Bachmann, head of the commercial section at the Austrian embassy in Tripoli, said.

"However, they are aware that probabilities are high that even after the elections it might take some months - hopefully not years - before decisions are taken."

While public sector entities await, the private sector is flourishing, especially trade. Tripoli's port is heaving with activity and foreign produce is stocked on supermarket shelves. A cash crisis has eased and shops and cafes have re-opened.

Monoprix Tunisia, an affiliate of the French supermarket chain, wants to start opening 10 stores in Libya from late 2012, after uprisings in both countries delayed earlier plans.

On the construction side, small-scale private projects have taken off - homes are being built, businesses being refurbished.

HUGE POTENTIAL; SECURITY RISKS

Austria's Asamer, which operates cement factories in Libya through a joint venture, has gradually increased production since January.

"We see a huge potential - there are the needs of young population and a lot of infrastructure to be reconstructed. We expect a boom in construction activity," Fodinger said.

Gaddafi isolated Libya's economy from much foreign competition, reserving licences and contracts for his own circle, so the prospect of a more open market is attractive to new entrants.

Dependent on oil, Libya needs basic infrastructure development as well as investment in property, consumer industries and telecoms after a fifth of transmitter stations were destroyed in the war. It will also need foreign investment and expertise to increase oil and gas production.

Its tourism industry is largely unexplored, despite stretches of beaches and well-preserved Roman ruins.

Various fairs drawing international businesses have allowed companies to cultivate relations. Industry Minister Mahmoud Al-Ftise said there were plans to increase privatisations, and Libya was interested in more foreign investment.

"We would like to have a participation from foreign and local private business so we can see results because we would like to have competition among the business," he told Reuters.

However security remains a concern. Bouts of violence are deterring foreign firms from bringing back all their expatriates on the ground for now. For those who were once used to living in villas or flats in Tripoli, they now find themselves confined in secure compounds without their families.

Many businessmen travel with security advisers.

Libya's interim government has struggled to impose its authority on a country awash with weapons. Attacks on diplomatic and aid missions in the east have highlighted the ongoing volatility.

Last month, Tripoli's international airport was seized by an armed group for several hours.

"Security is a concern and when you hear of such violent incidents as we have recently, you worry and it may deter some foreigners from coming here," one European businessman said during a recent trip to Tripoli.

"But you have to weigh the risks against the opportunities."

Source: Reuters 

Libyan expats cast votes in historic poll

The first votes in Libya’s elections were cast in Dubai on Tuesday as expatriates turned out to select a national assembly less than a year after the collapse of the Gaddafi regime.

The polling station in the Libyan consulate in Dubai opened at 9am local time with other locations in Jordan, Germany, the UK, the US and Canada scheduled to open their doors every day until July 7, when the elections are set to be held in Libya itself.

Burhaneddin Muntasser, regional manager for an Swiss-based IT company who lived through the war in Tripoli, was overcome with emotion after casting his vote.

“I want a Muslim country, with a free economy, where the Libyan citizens come first,” said the 48-year-old, tears streaming down his face. “I am hopeful of a good future for Libya, but I am not 100 per cent confident.”

The 200-member national assembly will select a prime minister, draft laws and appoint a committee to write a new constitution.

A steady stream from the 3,000 Libyan residents of the United Arab Emirates were ushered through an air-conditioned tent at the consulate for their first elections in half a century, leaving with a purple ink print on their index fingers to prove they had already voted.

Aref al-Nayed, the outgoing Libyan ambassador to the UAE, said the historic day was imbued with a sense of “sad joy.”

“There is joy at reaching this stage in the long struggle of the Libyan people, but sadness from the great sacrifices of the people who made this possible,” he said.

Mr Nayed, who will return to the private sector after representing Libya in the UAE since the revolution that overthrew Colonel Muammer al-Gaddafi last autumn, said he was optimistic that the elections would install a representative government and produce a constitution reflecting the desires of all Libyans.

Fears have grown that the elections could be affected by outbreaks of violence as armed militias that helped ousted the former regime compete for power.

On Sunday, armed groups demanding more autonomy for the east burned election materials and damaged computers in the eastern capital of Benghazi. But Mr Nayed said the following day the people of Benghazi had taken to the streets to pledge their support for the electoral process.

“This is a self correcting revolution, I am always assured by the ability of the Libyan people to protect and correct the situation,” he said.

Awwab Abdul, a 23-year-old oil trader, was born in the US and lived in Dubai for 13 years, but, despite only living briefly in Libya, he was one of the first to turn out to vote at 9am.

“Over the next year, Libya will emerge as a special new capital of the world,” he said. “For us, freedom is the most important thing.”

Source: Financial Times