Qadhafi’s Libya

Abstract

The political structure of the Libyan regime cannot be described by using some model of orthodoxy as a benchmark; the Libyan dictatorship is simply unique and bears no family resemblance to any other regime. For all its idiosyncrasies, though, in 1980 the regime was still basically a military regime. It had originated in a 1969 military coup or supposed ‘revolution’ that overthrew the monarchy and set up a regime emulating Nasser’s regime in neighbouring Egypt, with a Revolutionary Command Council junta headed by the coup leader and now Commander-in-Chief, Colonel Qadhafi. In the later 1970s the new regime had been transformed into a unique example of military-party regime, where a unique party-like political movement (the revolutionary committees) dominated a unique system of supposedly direct participatory democracy. The military had in theory handed over power to this Jamahiriya (state of the masses) system in 1977, with the country being renamed the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. But Colonel Qadhafi had established a degree of personal rule as ‘Leader of the Revolution’ and still dominated the regime.