Political system of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

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الجماهيرية العربية الليبية الشعبية الاشتراكية العظمى
Ǧamāhīriyya al-ʿarabiyya al-lībiyya aš-šaʿbiyya al-ištirākiyya al-ʿuẓmā
Great Socialist Libyan Arab People's Jamahiriya
1977-2011
Flag of Libya
National emblem of Libya
flag coat of arms
Official language Arabic
Capital Tripoli
Form of government republic
Government system Basic democracy (formal), autocracy (real)
Head of state General Secretary of the General People's Congress
Head of government General Secretary of the General People's Committee
surface 1,775,500 km²
currency Libyan Dinar (LYD)
National anthem Allahu Akbar
License Plate LAR
ISO 3166 LY , LBY, 434
Internet TLD .ly
Telephone code +218
LocationLibya.svg

Great Socialist Libyan Arab People's Jamahiriya ( Arabic الجماهيرية العربية الليبية الشعبية الاشتراكية العظمى al-Ǧamāhīriyya al-ʿarabiyya al-lībiyya aš-šaʿbiyya al-ištirākiyya al-ʿuẓmā ) was the name of the Libyan state from the Declaration on the Establishment of the Authority of the People from March 2, 1977 until the defeat of the regime in the 2011 civil war . It arose from the Arab Republic of Libya, which was proclaimed in 1969. According to the constitution, power lay with people's congresses and committees, trade unions and professional associations, but in fact with a small group of people around Muammar al-Gaddafi .

According to the constitution, the Jamahiriya was an Islamic socialist republic . The legislature was the General People's Congress ; some of its resolutions had the character of fundamental rights . The people's democracy proclaimed by the constitution was based on the one hand on grassroots democratic elements such as people's congresses and committees, whereby parties were banned, and on the other on revolutionary institutions such as the revolutionary committees, which were not subject to legislative control and which exercised actual power.

Political history

After independence from the colonial power of the Kingdom of Italy, Libya became the United Kingdom of Libya as Italian Libya . In 1969 the monarchy was overthrown and the Arab Republic of Libya was proclaimed, which was converted into the so-called Jamahiriya in 1977 by revolutionary leader Muammar al-Gaddafi while maintaining the Constitutional Proclamation of 1969. The state model is described in Muammar al-Gaddafi's Green Book , which combines socialist and Islamic theories on Islamic socialism , rejects parliamentary democracy and political parties and, as a third universal theory, strives for a path between capitalism and socialism. Another element are pan-Arab goals, which Gaddafi tried unsuccessfully to achieve in the form of unions with other Arab states from 1972 to 1981.

Government system

Muammar al-Gaddafi has been called the leader and leader of the revolution since 1969 and was officially head of state until 1979, after which he retained his position of power without a political office. Until the outbreak of the civil war in 2011, power was concentrated on Gaddafi and a group of people around him who determined the fate of the country in an informal and less transparent manner.

The General People's Committee under the direction of the Secretary General acted as the executive . The General Secretary of the General People's Congress is de jure head of state. Every four years the membership of the local people's congresses elected by acclamation both their own leadership and secretaries to the people's committees. The leadership of the local people's congress represented the local congresses at the next level people's congress and had an imperative mandate . The members of the National General People's Congress elected members of the National General People's Committee (the Cabinet) by acclamation at their annual meeting.

Legislative power

The General People's Congress (Mu'tammar al-Sha'ab al 'AMM) was the supreme body of the legislature. It was headed by a general secretariat and consisted of around 2,700 representatives of the grassroots people's congresses with an imperative mandate. The People's Congress was the legislative forum that interacted with the General People's Committee, whose members were secretaries to the ministries. It served as a mediator between the masses and the leadership as well as the secretariats of the 468 (as of March 2010) local grassroots people's congresses . Bills all had to go through the grassroots democratic process, which made them cumbersome as the corresponding congresses only met a few times a year. This gave hardliners the opportunity to endlessly delay reform proposals by repeatedly referring them back to the grassroots congresses. Gaddafi set the program for this process in his function as leader of the revolution; he did not have an office or a seat in the direct democratic structure. The guidelines were therefore his programmatic speeches and works.

The People's Congress Secretariat and Cabinet Secretaries were appointed by the General Secretary of the General People's Congress and confirmed by the annual Congress. These cabinet ministers were responsible for the day-to-day running of their ministries. Parties were not allowed.

Legal system

The Libyan judiciary consisted of four levels: summary courts, which prosecuted petty offenses, the courts of first instance, which prosecuted more serious crimes, the appeals courts and the Supreme Court, which was the final court of appeal. The General People's Congress appointed justices to the Supreme Court. Special “revolutionary courts” and military courts operated outside of the jurisdiction and attempted to punish political offenses and crimes against the state.

Revolutionary committees

In reality, the revolutionary committees originally founded in 1977 to anchor the idea of ​​popular rule strictly monitored and controlled the allegiance of the local committees and grassroots people's congresses. In the 1980s, the revolutionary committees increasingly functioned as a repressive special tribunal and as a protective force, distinguishable from the regular units of the army, to persecute opponents of the regime and manipulate the judiciary. The armed People's Guards were also created for this function in the 1990s.

Tribal structures

After initial conflicts, the tribes integrated into Gaddafi's system of rule. This was achieved against the background of a Libyan rent economy by distributing material benefits and posts to the influential tribes. As an institution for this purpose, the People's Leadership Committees were founded in 1993, in which the traditional elites and part of the pension distribution were organized.

criticism

Among other things, due to the dual character of grassroots democratic institutions on the one hand and revolutionary, arbitrary institutions on the other, the legitimacy and rule of law of the system were called into question. In 2008, a SWP study found that it was difficult to assess whether the population viewed the structures of rule as critically as the West. A publicly known development that Gaddafi himself addressed was that participation in the basic congresses steadily decreased. Widespread corruption was a controversial topic that was also freely discussed in society; In 2007, Libya was ranked 131st out of 179 in Transparency International's rankings. The system increasingly tried to counteract disaffection with subsidies, for example for drivers or the homeless, and an opening and liberalization of the market in the 2000s.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Text of the Declaration on the Establishment of the Authority of the People
  2. ^ Text of the Constitutional Proclamation 1969
  3. ^ Libya profile. In: BBC News . September 7, 2011, accessed September 24, 2011 .
  4. ↑ Bruno Callies de Salies: Colonel Gaddafi in distress. (No longer available online.) In: Le Monde diplomatique , German edition . October 14, 1995, formerly in the original ; Retrieved September 24, 2011 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.monde-diplomatique.de  
  5. ↑ a b Isabelle Werenfels: Qaddafi's Libya. (PDF 301K, 32 pages; 309 kB) Endlessly stable and resistant to reform? Science and Politics Foundation , July 2008, p. 10 , accessed on April 19, 2011 .
  6. ↑ The Brockhaus in five volumes . FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 2004. Page 2811.
  7. ↑ Country overview Libya / domestic politics from March 2010 on the website of the Federal Foreign Office
  8. ↑ a b Isabelle Werenfels: Qaddafi's Libya. (PDF 301K, 32 pages; 309 kB) Endlessly stable and resistant to reform? Science and Politics Foundation , July 2008, p. 11 , accessed on April 19, 2011 .
  9. ↑ a b c d Isabelle Werenfels: Qaddafis Libya. (PDF 301K, 32 pages; 309 kB) Endlessly stable and resistant to reform? Science and Politics Foundation , July 2008, p. 13 , accessed April 19, 2011 .
  10. ↑ a b Country profile of Libya (PDF; 147 kB) Library of Congress , Federal Research Division. August 2008. Retrieved January 30, 2011.
  11. ↑ a b c Helen de Guerlache: What is not in the Green Book. Gaddafi's Libya is awakening from the twilight of state control. Now it is above all social traditions that are holding back the new beginning. In: Le Monde diplomatique , German edition . July 7, 2006, accessed September 24, 2011 .
  12. ↑ Isabelle Werenfels: Qaddafi's Libya. (PDF 301K, 32 pages; 309 kB) Endlessly stable and resistant to reform? Science and Politics Foundation , July 2008, p. 18 , accessed on April 19, 2011 .