SUMMARY
According to UCDP definitions, the actor in control of a state’s capital – which in the case of Libya is Tripoli - should be considered as the government of the country; as such, the UCDP’s perception of who constituted the Government of Libya may on occasion differ from the generally accepted and/or internationally recognized government. To summarize, the UCDP considered the following actors in control of the Government of Libya: the regime of Muammar Gaddafi (up until 25 August 2011); the National Transitional Council (NTC, from 26 August 2011 to 8 August 2012); the General National Congress (GNC, from 9 August 2012 to 4 August 2014; the National Salvation Government (NSG/”New GNC”, from 25 August 2014 to 5 April 2016); Government of National Accord (GNA, from 6 April 2016). What follows below is a chronologic presentation of these different government factions. For the post-Gaddafi period, a brief presentation of the main armed groups supporting each government is also provided.
In 1969, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi overthrew the Libyan King Idris who had ruled the country since independence in 1952. After the bloodless coup, Gaddafi established an authoritarian government under his leadership. Under Gaddafi’s rule, Libya was governed as a “Jamahiriya state”, guided by an ideology of Gaddafi’s own design, where he mixed Arab nationalism, socialism, and Islam. For a majority of his rule, Gaddafi was a staunch opponent of the Western countries in general, and the United States of America in particular. However, in the final years of Gaddafi’s reign, Libya took several steps towards reconciliation with the West; it was suggested that that these efforts were driven by Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. Gaddafi maintained his hold on power until 2011, when he was overthrown after mass protests developed into a brief armed uprising spearheaded by the National Transitional Council (NTC); Gaddafi was killed on 20 October 2011. The uprising that led to Gaddafi’s ouster was inspired by the wider “Arab Spring” movements that had emerged in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
On 26 August 2011, the Government of Libya came under the control of the NTC, as its forces captured Tripoli. The forces loyal to Gaddafi did however continue to fight against the new NTC-led government until November 2011, even if its activities subsided considerably after Gaddafi’s death. The NTC, which had originally been based in the eastern town Benghazi, relocated to Tripoli where it formed a provisional government. The NTC was led by Chairman (or “President”) Mustafa Abdul Jalil, and was comprised of representatives from most major towns in Libya. The NTC later appointed Abdurrahim El-Keib as acting Prime Minister on 24 November 2011; prior to El-Keib’s appointment, Mahmoud Jibril and Ali Tarhouni had served very brief tenures as acting prime ministers. The NTC government was relatively weak, and had difficulties asserting itself against the powerful militias that had emerged to fight Gaddafi. The government was for example forced to dissolve its cabinet, and form a new one that incorporated members from various tribal and militia groups, as well as representatives from Libya’s business community.
Following the 2011 uprising, Libya’s national security forces were in disarray; both the police and armed forces suffered from a lack of equipment and a severe lack of popular trust, given their previous affiliation with the Gaddafi regime. Subsequently, the Libyan government oversaw the creation of two auxiliary security units to serve as its de facto armed forces: the Supreme Security Committees (SSC) and the Libya Shield Force (LSF). The SSC, formally subordinated to the Ministry of Interior, served as a makeshift gendarmerie force tasked with providing security at the local level; it was comprised of 60 000 to 100 000 former rebel fighters. The LSF, formally subordinated to the Ministry of Defense, was created to curb the proliferation of independent tribal and local armed groups. It was comprised of 12 divisions (or “Shields”, such as the Central Shield and Libya Shield One) each responsible for a defined geographic region; the separate Shields were organized from existing revolutionary (anti-Gaddafi) brigades created during the 2011 uprising. While the LSF was intended to be under the authority of the Libyan Chief of Staff, its Shields were in reality independent from any true centralized command structure. The LSF thus allowed local strongmen to keep their fighters as auxiliary forces that could be used to pursue particularistic agendas; many of the LSF divisions had intimate connections to Libya’s Islamist movement, and some likely had close connections to the Libya-branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. A large share of the LSF forces came from the town Mistrata, which had played a prominent role in the ousting of Gaddafi.
On 7 July 2012, parliamentary elections were held for the General National Congress (GNC), Libya’s new legislative assembly. On August 8, the NTC formally ceded power to the GNC, and in November Ali Zeidan assumed office as Prime Minister; from August 2012 to August 2014, the Government of Libya was commonly referred to as the “GNC”, based on the name of the legislative assembly. While the GNC assembly included representatives from a wide range of ideologies, it became dominated by various conservative Islamist groups that had increased its activities following Gaddafi’s ousting. The largest party to emerge from the 2012 elections was the National Forces Alliance (NFA), a liberal-leaning umbrella group led by Mahmoud Jibril. However, the NFA was unable to maintain its internal unity, as well as accrue sufficient support from the 120 independent members of the GNC assembly. Instead, the Islamist-oriented Justice and Construction Party (JCP) – the political party of the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya – established itself as a major powerbroker within the GNC. The JCP, itself a mix of various Salafist groups and independent religious figures, was also able to mobilize the support from many of the assembly’s independent members; as such, the JCP could outmaneuver the secularist bloc, led by the NFA. Another prominent faction within the GNC was the “al-Wafaa” bloc, which pursued its own Islamist agenda and was thus not allied to the Muslim Brotherhood. Most of the Islamist groupings within the GNC allied themselves with the “thuwwars” (or revolutionaries), a term used to describe anti-Gaddafi militias formed during the 2011 uprising, to force the implementation of the Political Isolation Law (PIL) in May 2013. The PIL, which was implemented under the threat of violence from the thuwwar, effectively banned anyone who had been affiliated to the Gaddafi regime from holding any future public office. This indirectly increased the political dominance of the Islamist factions, as many prominent non-Islamists were defectors from the Gaddafi administration and thus subjected to the PIL; for example, several NFA officials were forced to resign. The GNC-led Government of Libya continued to be highly reliant on the LSF to fulfill security functions; during the period 2012-2014 the LSF grew increasingly powerful, and some of its forces were directly involved in forcing the PIL to ratification.
In the spring of 2014, Libya was hit by political turmoil that began when the GNC attempted to extend its own term limit by another year. This led to an unsuccessful coup attempt by a former Libyan general, Khalifa Haftar, in February; Haftar had urged the GNC to dissolve, but his demand went unheeded. The chaos continued in March, when Prime Minister Zeidan was forced from office by the Islamist factions within the GNC assembly; Zeidan was sacked for failing to stop an oil tanker from leaving port in a militia-controlled town. In May, armed militias from the town Zintan stormed the Libyan parliament, and again demanded the GNC’s resignation. Amid this turmoil, the GNC eventually accepted the holding of parliamentary elections for a “House of Representatives”, Libya’s new legislative assembly, on 25 June. In the election, the various Islamist groups that had controlled the GNC suffered a major defeat, losing most of its chairs to moderate or liberal candidates. However, before the new House of Representatives could convene in Tripoli, the pro-Islamist Libya Dawn coalition seized control over the capital; the House of Representatives convened in Tobruk in eastern Libya. It is worth noting that the House of Representatives and its government - officially created in September under the leadership of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani - was Libya’s internationally recognized government at the time; however, as the House of Representatives did not reside in Tripoli, the UCDP did not consider it the Government of Libya.
On 25 August 2014, Islamist elements of the former GNC, supported by the Libya Dawn forces, reconvened in Tripoli and declared itself in power again. The ex-GNC also declared the creation of a “National Salvation Government” (NSG, sometimes called the “New GNC”), which on 6 September was formally placed under the leadership of Prime Minister Omar al-Hasi. From 25 August, the NSG was thus considered as the Government of Libya in the UCDP data, as it controlled Tripoli; the NSG was however not internationally recognized as the legitimate political authority in Libya. On 31 March 2015, Khalifa al-Ghawil replaced al-Hasi as NSG Prime Minister. Given its role in putting the NSG in power, the Libya Dawn coalition ceased to exist as an independent non-state actor and became the backbone of armed force loyal to the NSG-led Government of Libya after August 2014. Even after the formal dissolution of Libya Dawn during 2015, most of its constituent forces thus remained firmly loyal to the government, and served as its de facto armed forces. The most prominent of these armed factions were the militias from Misrata, one of the most militarily capable forces in Libya at the time. It should however be noted that the Misratan support for the NSG was not purely ideological; it was also driven by the rivalry between Misrata and Zintan, which had begun as the two towns competed for influence in the aftermath of Gaddafi’s ousting (for more detailed information about the Misratan forces, please consult the Libya Dawn actor page).
On 17 December 2015, the NSG-led Government of Libya and the Tobruk-based House of Representatives signed the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) in Skhirat, Morocco. The LPA contained a series of power-sharing arrangements, which included that the NSG should be disbanded and replaced with a new executive body, the Presidency Council, and a “Government of National Accord” (GNA). The House of Representatives would also be recognized as Libya’s legitimate legislative assembly, provided that it ratified the GNA. Despite resistance from hardline factions within both the government and the House of Representatives, the agreement was ratified and the new GNA created, mainly because of intense international pressure. Several external stakeholders, such as Western countries and the United Nations, were deeply invested in reconciling Tripoli and Tobruk, so that more effort could be directed towards curbing the growth of IS in Libya. The relatively weak support for the LPA within the signatories themselves was displayed when the House of Representatives failed to ratify the list of minister for the GNA suggested by the Presidency Council, as many of its members were opposed to the LPA. The House of Representatives instead opted to maintain its own rival government, and was thus never integrated into the Government of Libya. The House of Representatives also lost its status as the internationally recognized government following the creation of the GNA. Given their investment in producing the agreement, the Western countries and the UN chose to recognize the new Presidency Council and the GNA as the legitimate Government of Libya.
The new GNA, led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj (who also served as the chair of the Presidency Council), officially assumed office in December 2015. However, the GNA did not arrive in Tripoli until 30 March 2016. NSG Prime Minister al-Ghawil, who did not support the LPA as it would effectively force him from power, initially contested the legitimacy of the GNA. Nevertheless, al-Ghawil stepped down on 5 April 2016 and recognized the authority of the Presidency Council. As such, the GNA was considered as the Government of Libya from 5 April 2016 in UCDP data. Much like the preceding governments, the GNA was unable to assert much real influence outside Tripoli and its immediate environs; various non-state actors controlled most of both eastern and southern Libya. One of GNA’s most important de facto armed forces was the Tripoli-based Special Deterrence Force militia (also known by its Arabic acronym RADA), which was used to fill many different security and fighting functions in and around the capital. Much like most other political actors in post-2011 Libya, the GNA also had to rely on the support of local and tribal militias. Examples of these included various militias from Misrata (such as the Misratan Third Force/13th Brigade), Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade, Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG), and the Kani Brigade. From 3 June 2017, the Zintan Military Council also appeared to have switched allegiance to the Government of Libya; prior to this date, especially during 2014 and 2015, the Zintanis had been an important constituent part of the Forces of the House of Representatives.
As of 2017, the Government of Libya was controlled by the GNA, and Fayez al-Serraj remained Prime Minister.
The Government of Libya was the recipient of secondary warring support from the Government of United States of America in the conflict against IS in both 2016 and 2017. There were also reports that Turkey and Qatar provided secondary non-warring support to the GNC and NSG regimes; for example, both countries provided weapons to the NSG-loyal Libya Dawn coalition.
