Time is running out for Libya’s interim authorities to engineer the transfer of power to a democratically elected administration. It is now two and a half years since Muammar Gaddafi was brutally killed in the town of Sirte, bringing an end to his four-decade rule. What slow progress has been made in building new institutions of state is being marred by political infighting and a rising tide of violence, and the result is increasing disaffection among ordinary Libyans.

Growing resentment

After months of deadlock, elections were finally held in February to choose the body to draft a new constitution, but little more than a million of the 3.4 million entitled to vote took part. This is a steep drop from the 2.7 million who voted in Libya’s first national polls in July 2012, the high point of the country’s post-revolution transition. It reflects the growing resentment over the government’s inability to provide security or basic services, let alone economic development.

Crude exports, the Libyan economy’s lifeblood, have plunged to about 200,000 barrels a day

Ali Tarhouni, a professor of economics who had lived in exile for three decades and served as oil and finance minister for the National Transitional Council, Libya’s first post-Gaddafi government, was eventually selected as the head of the Constitutional Assembly. It began work on 22 April to draft a new constitution from the eastern town of Bayda, in the very building that housed parliament when the country gained independence in 1951.

The assembly has been given 120 days to draw up the constitution, the most important task in Libya’s transition, although few analysts expect the deadline to be met. The body’s legitimacy also continues to be disputed.

The constitution drafting panel was planned to have 60 members, split equally between the country’s three provinces: Tripolitania; Fezzan; and Cyrenaica. However, the election faced boycotts from ethnic minorities such as the Berbers, and took place amid violence in parts of the south and east. As a result, only 47 people are now working on the draft constitution.

The Higher National Elections Commission also announced the start of voter registration for parliamentary elections on 22 April, a process that will last until the middle of May. The General National Congress (GNC), the interim parliament whose mandate expired earlier this year, has pledged to hold the elections this summer, although the exact schedule is far from set. Given the GNC’s track record, the timetable is likely to slide.

Until the constitutional committee settles on a draft and it is voted on and frameworks are set in place that Libyans can trust, everything will remain interim in nature. In the meantime, the country remains without a permanent prime minister.

Having survived two no-confidence votes in parliament, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was finally dismissed by the GNC in mid-March, when a tanker broke a naval blockade of the El-Sider port, laden with more than 200,000 barrels of Libyan oil supplied by rebel federalist forces. In a rare show of decisiveness, the GNC acted immediately, reasserting itself as the country’s prime authority by blaming the incident on Zeidan and seeking his arrest on charges of embezzlement. He was fortunate enough to escape to Germany.

Paralysed congress

Zeidan’s reluctant replacement, Defence Minister Abdullah al-Thinni, was supposed to be in office for just two weeks, while the GNC found a suitable candidate. Showing just how fragmented and paralysed the authority has become, the process has been a protracted affair that culminated in near farcical scenes in early May. Ahmed Maiteeq was elected prime minister and sworn in only for his appointment to be rejected hours later by the chairman of the congress due to voting irregularities. The vote itself was dramatic; gunmen stormed parliament forcing deputies to abandon the first session. With most members no longer bothering to attend congress, many had to be summoned to vote.

When a militia arrests someone… they have a letter from someone in government giving them authorisation

Source in Tripoli

By the end of his tenure, Zeidan complained that he had little real power and was being obstructed by Islamist blocs in the GNC. Before his dismissal, he was briefly abducted in October 2013. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Justice & Construction party led the efforts to remove Zeidan, pulling its ministers and deputies out of the cabinet in February as a sign of its discontent with the government’s performance, including the oil minister.

Al-Thinni openly said he had no desire to retain the post, and officially resigned after attacks on his family on 13 April.

Security concerns

While the power struggles continue in parliament, security in Libya continues to deteriorate, highlighted by the spate of kidnappings of foreign diplomats. Jordan’s ambassador, Fawwaz al-Eitan, was abducted on 15 April in central Tripoli by gunmen demanding the release of a Libyan Islamist militant serving a life sentence in Jordan. Tunisia has also halved its diplomatic staff in the country, following the kidnapping of an adviser to the Tunisian embassy earlier in the month. In the latest attack, gunmen on 18 April targeted the Portuguese embassy in Tripoli, wounding a security officer.

The weakness and disorganisation of Libya’s security institutions, the army and police are a major factor in the current instability. Libya’s various militias by comparison have both greater firepower and numbers, and are also better organised.

Testifying before the US Senate, Frederic Wehrey, a senior associate at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment, described the deal between Libya’s first transitional government and the militias, which overthrew the Gaddafi regime and put the militias on the payroll of the defence and interior ministries.

“By all accounts, this has been a Faustian bargain that has given the militias freedom to pursue agendas that are political, ideological and, in some cases, purely criminal,” Wehrey said on 3 April.

In Tripoli, militias from the northwestern towns of Zintan and Misrata have occupied public areas and government institutions, raided army facilities and pressured the country’s parliament with occasional shows of force on the streets of the capital.

The situation is even worse in the east of the country, in particular Benghazi, the home of the Libyan revolution, which is rocked by nearly daily bombings and assassinations. Federalist rebels have shut down oil production and exports, effectively holding the government to ransom over demands for greater autonomy.

Crude exports, the economy’s lifeblood, have plunged to about 240,000 barrels a day (b/d), compared with 1.4 million b/d at the start of 2013, forcing the government to rely on foreign savings to pay salaries and subsidies. The GNC has now proposed cutting the budget to $36bn from $56bn, due to the loss of revenues.

As a result, the Washington-based World Bank has revised its estimates for the government’s financial position for 2013 and 2014. The fiscal surplus in 2012 is expected to have turned into a deficit of 5 per cent of GDP in 2013 and 4 per cent in 2014.

The government has so far struggled to address any of these challenges. In early April, the GNC reached an agreement with the rebel group led by Ibrahim Jathran to reopen the Zueitina and Hariga oil ports, which it had blockaded since last summer. Under the deal, the two ports were to be handed over to government control immediately, while the El-Sidra and Ras Lanuf ports were to be transferred within a month. However, Zueitina is still not under government control.

The army has been reluctant to take on the militias due to the make-up of the GNC. The various militias originate from towns and cities across the country, and have a link to those communities. The members of the GNC who represent the communities in parliament are subject to pressure from the militias, who also gain a veneer of legitimacy from the GNC. “When a militia arrests someone or takes action, they have a letter from someone in government giving them authorisation,” says a source in Tripoli.

Hands tied

When ordinary Libyans began protesting on the streets for the government to take action against the armed groups at the end of 2013, the GNC would not approve military action. In most countries, the chief of staff would answer to a civilian defence minister chosen by the prime minister and approved by parliament. Libya represents a peculiar case, however, where the chief of staff answers to the president of the GNC and does not take orders from either the defence minister or the prime minister. Some members of the GNC have no interest in controlling the militias, since they essentially represent them in parliament. So Zeidan’s repeated attempts to order the army to retake blockaded ports, for example, were simply ignored. As a source in Tripoli puts it, the army just sits on its hands.

The prospect of this situation changing any time soon is remote. Until the constitution is drawn and elections are held, the situation in Libya will remain just as precarious as it is today.