"It is not the best outcome we could hope for, but the Islamists will probably play a role..."

Via FLC

While secular and military figures have fallen into factional fighting, Mr. Busidra, 53, has brought together Libya’s disparate moderate Islamist leaders into the country’s only united political force. This has made him, in the view of many people here, the figure who will wield the most political power, and likely control the country’s leadership, in the event of the dictator’s demise. "We have to prepare our country politically now, to prevent any political vacuum from occurring when the criminal Gadhafi is gone,” Mr. Busidra said in the first interview he has given since early March. “And I can assure you, when we Islamists establish a party, which will be on a national basis, I think we will win comfortably.”
This assessment is shared, sometimes with alarm, by many of his opponents.
“The Islamist opposition are much better organized and financed than us because they are focused entirely on politics,” says Mohammed Bujamaya, founder of the Liberal Gathering, one of several secularist proto-parties struggling for recognition in Benghazi. “We are tied up with the crisis, while they have their figures outside of Benghazi and sometimes out of the country, scheming.”
The prospect of the multinational NATO air-warfare campaign, in which Canada is a participant, effectively helping usher in a democratic Islamist government is causing some unease among member nations. “It is not the best outcome we could hope for, but the Islamists will probably play a role,” says one European diplomat.
On the other hand, some Western figures say they prefer to keep Mr. Busidra empowered because he has worked to prevent Islamic extremists – such as al-Qaeda fighters and jihadist veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns – from becoming influential in post-Gadhafi politics.
“I make a point of meeting with these fighters,” Mr. Busidra says, “And what I say is: ‘Let us be clear from now on. If you are here to represent your ideologies, or to represent al-Qaeda, please leave our country.’ “ His group is presenting itself as a moderate Islamist option, opposed both to the sharia-law absolutism of the Salafists, al-Qaeda and other jihadi fighters, and to secularism.
“I can tell you one thing. I know the Libyan people, and they will not accept very strict Islam – that is definite,” he says...But his moderation only goes so far. For those Libyans hoping that their country will become a liberal-minded holiday destination like neighbouring Tunisia, or a place with European-style equality of gender and sexuality, these Islamists will go only so far."

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