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Libya
The Basic People's Congress
The blurred lines of responsibility dividing the ASU (as the
organization charged with mobilizing the masses) and the people's
committees (charged with being the primary administrative instrument
of the revolution) led to minimal cooperation and even conflict
between the two systems. Political participation by the population
as a whole was lacking, and administration was inefficient. Qadhafi
decided that if coordination and cooperation between the ASU and
the people's committees were to be increased, and if organized
functional groups (especially labor) were to be brought further
into an integrated participatory system, still another innovation
was required. The fourth stage in modifying subnational government
and administration involved a reorganization of the ASU, announced
by Qadhafi on April 28, 1975.
Membership in the reorganized ASU was open to all Libyans (except
convicted criminals and the mentally ill) as well as to all Arabs
living outside Libya. At the lowest geographic level, the submunicipal
zone, the population formed the BPC, all citizens within the jurisdiction
of a given BPC automatically becoming members of it. By 1987 over
2,000 BPCs had been created. The BPC was headed by an executive
or leadership committee of ten members, directed by a secretary
(sometimes referred to as a chairman). The leadership committee's
function was strictly administrative-- announcing congress meetings,
preparing minutes, and setting the agenda. Qadhafi noted that
the leadership committees would be selected rather than elected,
the results of elections not having been entirely satisfactory
in the past. Press reports later announced, however, that ASU
elections at all levels were held between November 9 and December
3, 1975 (the term "election" possibly having been used in the
broadest sense to include some less direct selection process).
Each municipal district was composed of several BPCs. The Tripoli
ASU municipal district, for example, comprised forty-four BPCs
in 1975. Members of the leadership committees of all BPCs within
a given municipal district formed the Municipal Popular Congress.
A leadership committee of twenty members was selected by that
congress.
Leadership committee chairmen from the BPCs and the Municipal
Popular Congress were delegates to the highest ASU organ, the
National Congress, which met in 1972 and 1974. Also represented
at the municipal congresses and the National Congress were delegates
from professional groups and organized labor, a modification in
the old form of ASU functional representation based on workplaces.
The April 1975 ASU reorganization announcement stipulated that
the national representative organ was to be called the National
General Congress. A November 13 decree included formal provisions
for the new congress, the first session of which was held in January
1976. By the time of its September 1976 session, the national
representative body had become the GPC, which had transcended
the old ASU National Congress in formal power and purpose.
With the 1975 reorganization of the ASU, the roles of the people's
committees and the ASU's BPCs were demarcated, at least theoretically.
People's committees were responsible for political matters, and
they debated both domestic and foreign policies as presented by
the national leadership in the form of a standard agenda. In terms
of authority, the political organ was superior to the administrative,
the ASU having been assigned supervisory and guidance functions
over the people's committees. The GPC, embodying the will of the
lower municipal and basic popular congresses, was the highest
legislative and executive authority in the country.
Data as of 1987
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