Reuters/Tripoli
Abdel Rahim al-Keib, pitched from academic obscurity to head Libya’s new government, set about selecting his cabinet yesterday, hoping to rally the disparate groups which toppled Muammar Gaddafi behind a democratic peace. After decades as a dissident in exile, working as a professor of electrical engineering, Keib’s family background in Tripoli and his long spells living in both the US and the Gulf were still being pored over by analysts for clues to his surprise election by the interim ruling council. Some saw his links to the capital offering a balance to the hold on the National Transitional Council (NTC) by eastern Libyans from Benghazi, the seat of the uprising. Historic regional rivalries are part of a matrix of divisions among the 6mn Libyans which have been inflamed by months of war. His lack of past service under Gaddafi, in contrast to NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil and others, and his presence in Libya during most of this year’s fighting, in contrast to the outgoing wartime prime minister Mahmoud Jibril, may also boost his legitimacy as the government tries to organise elections. Keib was elected with 26 votes from the 51-member NTC on Monday in Tripoli, taking over from Jibril, who had promised to resign once the killing of Gaddafi and fall of final bastions of support allowed last week’s declaration of “liberation”. Under a timetable for democracy drawn up by the NTC, an unelected gathering of Gaddafi opponents which won international recognition as Libya’s legitimate government, Keib has another two weeks to form his transitional government. The administration should organise an election in the first half of next year to an assembly that will draft a constitution. With vast oil and gas reserves and a relatively small population, Libya has the potential to become a prosperous nation, but regional rivalries pent up during Gaddafi’s 42 years of one-man rule could descend into a cycle of revenge. Keib will have to rein in the armed militias that sprang up in towns across the sprawling, thinly populated country to overthrow Gaddafi and reconcile those remaining loyal to the old rule while brokering a new system to govern the country. “This transition period has its own challenges. One thing we will be doing is working very closely with the NTC and listening to the Libyan people,” Keib said on Monday. An academic and a businessman, Keib has spent much of his life outside Libya, studying in the US before taking up academic posts there and in the United Arab Emirates. NTC members, as well as former students from his days teaching at Tripoli University in the 1970s, described Keib as “quiet and friendly” and said he had helped with the financing of the revolt against Gaddafi. The prime minister said he expected to choose his cabinet ministers within the two weeks set by the NTC timetable.