Graphics by Alex
That said, the Muslim Brotherhood is odd on favorite to win the June elections, in the view of many in country observers of current developments.
The MB is far more organized, well-funded and are working today in the neighborhoods of Libya’s main cities recruiting members and campaign organizers, while trying to keep a low profile.They have asked members to shave their beards, talk about clean government, avoid arguments, and remind anxious Libyans that “Libya is not Afghanistan” and all we want is security, domestic peace and no foreign interference.
The US, UK, and France are currently just watching and guessing at developments according to the Ambassador from one southern African country. The US State Department is believed even by some NTC officials, lawyers and Judges, that this observer has met with during two days of meetings this week at the Libyan Ministry of Justice inquiring about certain individuals in NTC and Militia custody, to be unsure what the US policy should be because they have mixed feelings about the MB. Some US officials are reported to believe that an unstoppable Muslim Brotherhood arc or crescent is quickly jelling across the Magreb, as it grows also in Turkey and that the MB will dominate in Syria when and if the Assad government is toppled.
According to US Senate Foreign Relations Committee sources, the potential utility for Washington of the MB does not end there. Some in Congress and the Obama administration, as well as the Zionist lobby in and outside of Congress, hope that after all the failures of the US administration to spark a Sunni-Shia war, that the MB might just be the best and unexpected weapon in achieving this goal which has been US policy since the late 1980’s.
These forces are said also to hope and beleive that after achieving a substantial share of the next government of Syria, the MB will quickly build itself up in Lebanon, and give the Sunni community strong effective leadership that has been sorely lacking the past nearly 7 years following the assassination of PM Rafiq Hariri, and take on Shia Hezbollah. In short, NATO countries may sit on their hands regarding to coming elections, drop the current attachment to NTC officials, that has only have six months left in office anyhow, and let the MB control Libya’s next government.
The MB in Libya is actually quite good on the issues that are increasingly concerning potential voters as the latter learn how to vote and participate in political parties, which have been outlawed as traitorous since 1972 when Revolutionary Committees were established to make legislative and administrative decisions.
Those issues are many and incude, but are not limited to the following:
This issue is quickly becoming a scandal and will no doubt soon make some headlines. I asked the official is he was sure of his information and he brought over the lady who keeps the records and she verified it showing me records I could not read but I believe her, and said Central Bank officials are outraged because the money is needed at the local banks where long lines of desperate account holding often wait hours only to be told to return another day for their monthly allocation of 750 dinars of their own money. This week, this observer saw ugly and sad scenes at banks in the neighborhood south of Green Square and Omar Muktar street, as I tried in vain to find a working ATM machine. One cannot but feel bad for elderly citizens standing in the rain waiting half the day to get a meager monthly withdrawal of their funds on to be told to return another day when, enshallah, there will be money for them. Citizens have reported that they should have taken all their money out of their bank account as soon as there were signs of trouble last February. Now it’s too late and anger is growing.
Qatar is expected to play a major role as the June elections draw near.
Even women’s rights are being supported by the MB….sort of. Repairing war damage, garbage pickup, organizing traffic which has brought some crowed streets in downtown Tripoli to a near halt, given the more than one million Libyans and others have flooded into the capitol city from around the battered country and few showing signs of wanting to leave are issued the MB is talking about while calling for sectarian dialogue.
Disarming the militias and pressuring young men to go back home, given up their arms, join the police force or a new Libyan army or get a real job are very sensitive issues that the MB does not address with much conviction. Privately the MB, as well as the NTC, admits that there will be no disarmament of militias anytime soon. A few young men I chatted with during a demonstration at Green (Martyrs) Square yesterday actually said they miss the fighting and want to fight some more. “It was really exciting and fun most of the time and I made some great friends!” one kid from Benghazi told me. He plans to stay in Tripoli with his Militia buddies.
It bars, with quite vague language, “former members of Gadhafi's regime” from being candidates in the election. Among the Judges I spoke with at the Ministry of Justice some expressed dismay because they said that 80% of the current staff at their Ministry, and most other Ministries, worked there, lawyers and judges included, under the Gadhafi regime and were patriotic Libyans. There is going to be lots of confusion concerning the scope of the new law and its application. The new election law also bans anyone who got a degree based on academic research on the Green Book — Gadhafi's political manifesto that laid out his theory of government and society declaring Libya a "republic of the masses." Thousands are covered by this exclusion because in order to get a good position it helped if one’s CV showed studies relating to theories of government espoused in the Green Book. The same idea as in China when it was a good idea to study Mao’s little Red Book and add that fact to one’s CV. Academics who even wrote about Gaddafi's Green Book, which discusses politics, economics and everyday life, will also be barred from running under the law.
The draft election law has outraged women because it restricts them to only 10% of the 200 election seats and the law does not indicate who many seats will go to which tribal areas. One woman angrily told me, “Ten percent is about what the Brotherhood thinks we are worth.”
fplamb@gmail.comHe is the author of The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel’s Use of American Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon.
He contribute to Uprooted Palestinians Blog
Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp
Beirut Mobile: +961-70-497-804
Office: +961-01-352-127
"Is it a pre-condition to recognize Israel in order to govern?"
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
No comments:
Post a Comment