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Libya
INDEPENDENT LIBYA
Under the constitution of October 1951, the federal monarchy
of Libya was headed by King Idris as chief of state, with succession
to his designated heirs. Substantial political power resided with
the king. The executive arm of the government consisted of a prime
minister and Council of Ministers designated by the king but also
responsible to the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of a bicameral
legislature. The Senate, or upper house, consisted of eight representatives
from each of the three provinces. Half of the senators were nominated
by the king, who also had the right to veto legislation and to
dissolve the lower house. Local autonomy in the provinces was
exercised through provincial governments and legislatures. Benghazi
and Tripoli served alternately as the national capital.
Several factors, rooted in Libya's history, affected the political
development of the newly independent country. They reflected the
differing political orientations of the provinces and the ambiguities
inherent in Libya's monarchy. First, after the first general elections,
which were held on February 19, 1952, political parties were abolished.
The National Congress Party, which had campaigned against a federal
form of government, was defeated throughout the country. The party
was outlawed, and Sadawi was deported. Second, provincial ties
continued to be more important than national ones, and the federal
and provincial governments were constantly in dispute over their
respective spheres of authority. A third problem derived from
the lack of a direct heir to the throne. To remedy this situation,
Idris in 1953 designated his sixty-year-old brother to succeed
him. When the original heir apparent died, the king appointed
his nephew, Prince Hasan ar Rida, his successor.
In its foreign policy, Libya maintained a pro-Western stance
and was recognized as belonging to the conservative traditionalist
bloc in the League of Arab States (Arab League), of which it became
a member in 1953. The same year Libya concluded a twenty-year
treaty of friendship and alliance with Britain under which the
latter received military bases in exchange for financial and military
assistance. The next year, Libya and the United States signed
an agreement under which the United States also obtained military
base rights, subject to renewal in 1970, in return for economic
aid to Libya. The most important of the United States installations
in Libya was Wheelus Air Base, near Tripoli, considered a strategically
valuable installation in the 1950s and early 1960s. Reservations
set aside in the desert were used by British and American military
aircraft based in Europe as practice firing ranges. Libya forged
close ties with France, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, and established
full diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1955, but declined
a Soviet offer of economic aid.
As part of a broad assistance package, the UN Technical Assistance
Board agreed to sponsor a technical aid program that emphasized
the development of agriculture and education. Foreign powers,
notably Britain and the United States, provided development aid.
Steady economic improvement occurred, but the pace was slow, and
Libya remained a poor and underdeveloped country heavily dependent
on foreign aid.
This situation changed suddenly and dramatically in June 1959
when research prospectors from Esso (later renamed Exxon) confirmed
the location of major petroleum deposits at Zaltan in Cyrenaica.
Further discoveries followed, and commercial development was quickly
initiated by concession holders who returned 50 percent of their
profits to the Libyan government in taxes. In the petroleum market,
Libya's advantages lay not only in the quantity but also in the
high quality of its crude product. Libya's proximity and direct
linkage to Europe by sea were further marketing advantages. The
discovery and exploitation of petroleum turned the vast, sparsely
populated, impoverished country into a independently wealthy nation
with potential for extensive development and thus constituted
a major turning point in Libyan history (see Hydrocarbons and
Mining , ch. 3).
As development of petroleum resources progressed in the early
1960s, Libya launched its first Five-Year Plan, 1963-68. One negative
result of the new wealth from petroleum, however, was a decline
in agricultural production, largely through neglect. Internal
Libyan politics continued to be stable, but the federal form of
government had proven inefficient and cumbersome. In April 1963,
Prime Minister Muhi ad Din Fakini secured adoption by parliament
of a bill, endorsed by the king, that abolished the federal form
of government, establishing in its place a unitary, monarchical
state with a dominant central government. By legislation, the
historical divisions of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fezzan were
to be eliminated and the country divided into ten new provinces,
each headed by an appointed governor. The legislature revised
the constitution in 1963 to reflect the change from a federal
to a unitary state.
In regional affairs, Libya enjoyed the advantage of not having
aggravated boundary disputes with its neighbors. Libya was one
of the thirty founding members of the Organization of African
Unity (OAU), established in 1963, and in November 1964 participated
with Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia in forming a joint consultative
committee aimed at economic cooperation among North African states.
Although it supported Arab causes, including the Moroccan and
Algerian independence movements, Libya took little active part
in the Arab-Israeli dispute or the tumultuous inter-Arab politics
of the 1950s and the early 1960s.
Nevertheless, the brand of Arab nationalism propounded by Egypt's
Gamal Abdul Nasser exercised an increasing influence, particularly
among the younger generation. In response to antiWestern agitation
in 1964, Libya's essentially pro-Western government requested
the evacuation of British and American bases before the dates
specified in the treaties. Most British forces were in fact withdrawn
in 1966, although the evacuation of foreign military installations,
including Wheelus Air Base, was not completed until March 1970.
The June 1967 War between Israel and its Arab neighbors aroused
a strong reaction in Libya, particularly in Tripoli and Benghazi,
where dock and oil workers as well as students were involved in
violent demonstrations. The United States and British embassies
and oil company offices were damaged in rioting. Members of the
small Jewish community were also attacked, prompting the emigration
of almost all remaining Libyan Jews. The government restored order,
but thereafter attempts to modernize the small and ineffective
Libyan armed forces and to reform the grossly inefficient Libyan
bureaucracy foundered upon conservative opposition to the nature
and pace of the proposed reforms.
Although Libya was clearly on record as supporting Arab causes
in general, the country did not play an important role in Arab
politics. At the Arab summit conference held at Khartoum in September
1967, however, Libya, along with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, agreed
to provide generous subsidies from oil revenues to aid Egypt,
Syria, and Jordan, defeated in June by Israel. Also, Idris first
broached the idea of taking collective action to increase the
price of oil on the world market. Libya, nonetheless, continued
its close association with the West, while Idris' government steered
an essentially conservative course at home.
After the forming of the Libyan state in 1963, Idris' government
had tried--not very successfully--to promote a sense of Libyan
nationalism built around the institution of the monarchy. But
Idris himself was first and foremost a Cyrenaican, never at ease
in Tripolitania. His political interests were essentially Cyrenaican,
and he understood that whatever real power he had--and it was
more considerable than what he derived from the constitution--lay
in the loyalty he commanded as amir of Cyrenaica and head of the
Sanusi order. Idris' pro-Western sympathies and identification
with the conservative Arab bloc were especially resented by an
increasingly politicized urban elite that favored nonalignment.
Aware of the potential of their country's natural wealth, many
Libyans had also become conscious that its benefits reached very
few of the population. An ominous undercurrent of dissatisfaction
with corruption and malfeasance in the bureaucracy began to appear
as well, particularly among young officers of the armed forces
who were influenced by Nasser's Arab nationalist ideology.
Alienated from the most populous part of the country, from the
cities, and from a younger generation of Libyans, Idris spent
more and more time at his palace in Darnah, near the British military
base. In June 1969, the king left the country for rest and medical
treatment in Greece and Turkey, leaving Crown Prince Hasan ar
Rida as regent.
Data as of 1987
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