Mahmoud Jibril

Position: Leader of National Forces Alliance bloc, Libya

Biography: Mahmoud Jibril is the leader of the National Forces Alliance bloc, which is leading the polls in Libya’s first post-Gaddafi general elections. Jibril was instrumental in setting up the National Transitional Council (NTC) in March 2011 in the eastern city of Benghazi during the uprising and meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Paris to discuss ways to depose Gaddafi.

He resigned as the executive bureau chief leader of the NTC at the end of October 2011, shortly after they declared Libya independent of Gaddafi. He was replaced by interim Prime Minister Abdulrahim al-Keib.

Prior to joining the opposition movement, Jibril led the National Economic Development Board under the Gaddafi regime, promoting privatisation and liberalisation policies. In the past, he has run management and administration programmes for senior bureaucrats in Arab countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, the UAE, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, Morocco and Tunisia.

Jibril taught strategic planning at the University of Pittsburgh in the US. He graduated from Egypt’s Cairo University with a degree in economics and political science and has a master’s in political science and a doctorate in strategic planning from the University of Pittsburgh.