World view

Direct democracy: The Libyan experiment

by Prof. Dr. Türkkaya ATAÖV

Libya is not only a republic. Officially, it does not call itself a ‘Jumhuriya’. Instead, it is described as a ‘Jamahiriya’, meaning a republic with a system of direct democracy. Not too many non-Libyans are aware that this North African country, conquered several times in the past - and which lost thousands of its citizens, including the legendary hero Omar Mukhtar, as martyrs, to colonialism - has been experimenting since the late 1970s with a governmental policy and practice that enables it to credit its own society as being ahead of a number of Western regimes that have habitually claimed to be the cradle of democracy.

The Founding Fathers of the United States, having escaped from wars, poverty and discrimination in the Old World, rebelled in the New World against the prerogatives of the British king and claimed to have created a system of separation of powers and checks and balances. The British realized the Magna Carta, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and everything else that followed them, including several Labour Party governments. The French and the Russians wrote the achievements of two great revolutions down in the annals of history. The Turks gave up much of the Ottoman past that was dead wood anyway. Former colonial societies like India have presented the world with some new ideas in governance. While Japan gave up its militaristic past, some African peoples found in their ancient past traces of ‘Ujamaa’, or socialisation, and South Africa abandoned the hated system of apartheid. The guiding spirits of Simon Bolivar, José Marti and Zapata may be seen in several corners of Latin America.

The question is: which ideas survived since the American Revolution? What is the character and scope of the consensus of the two leading political parties there? The House of Commons is supreme in Britain, but should the British model be imitated elsewhere? The Blacks of Africa finally placed the crown on their own heads, but where are the jewels of the crown? The Brezhnev Doctrine is dead; what about the Monroe Doctrine?

A different experiment

The Libyan experiment has been different. The First of September Revolution (1969) there triggered many changes. The General People’s Congress held its first meeting in 1976, and “People’s Authority” was declared to have been established in early 1977. Since then, the Libyans claim to have announced the dawn of the era of the masses, or popular direct authority, as the basis of their political system. The man on the street, as much as the elite, believes that that the people exercise their authority through the popular congresses, the people’s committees and other bodies, and ultimately through the General People’s Congress.

Libya conceptualizes sovereignty and democracy in a different way. It has created institutional arrangements to give practical effect to these concepts. These institutions function in their own prescribed way to implement the notions of sovereignty and democracy so conceived. Short answers to these questions should be as follows: The decisions taken and implemented should reflect the sovereign will of the whole people, and not that of any class, clan, fraction or individual; they should be implemented in a way which reflects the sovereign will of the whole, not any part of it. The people, locally and nationally, should participate directly in decision-making and in the implementation of decisions, and should use their right to control the results. Hence, direct rule, not representation.

Principles and practice

The basic principles as to how these objectives can be achieved may be found in M. Al-Qaddafi’s ‘The Green Book’. There are also  research and publication centres in Tripoli, led by Dr. R. Budabbus, Dr. Abdullah Osman  and Salem Hamza, that have printed various elaborations on the Libyan political system, often referred to as the Third Universal Theory. A number of foreign commentators have erroneously assumed that this theory prescribes state ownership and control. Some of them, like David Blundy and Andrew Lycett, fail to offer concrete and detailed discussion of what goes on at the people’s congresses. Another, Martin Sicker, is entirely one-sided.

I happen to have some first-hand knowledge about the working of those meetings, in which all citizens may participate. I also know that the Libyan leader is at times criticised there. Moreover, there are cases in which his suggestions are turned down by popular vote and the exact opposite is adopted and recommended for legislation. For instance, M. Al-Qaddafi repeatedly suggested the elimination of capital punishment but the people’s congresses decided to maintain it for some crimes, and the latter prevailed.

There exists a group of Libyan and African researchers like Abdul Salam Al-Tunji, M. L, Farhat, A. A. Awan and A. Yeboah, on the other hand, who give information based on the true nature of this unique development.. Some old publications, for instance those of H. Habib, are no longer of any use because they dwell on the period before the major changes that instituted the Jamahiriya. The new ones should help clear out several misconceptions, fed by the prejudices of unfriendly witnesses and by the lack of accounts on the processes that take place on the ground in Libya. There is room for critical interpretations, but facts should also be laid bare. While favourable bias should not blind one to shortcomings, prejudices should not emphasize defects that do not exist.

Authority and participation

The limited space available here does not permit a detailed treatment of the institutions and structure of ‘Sulta el-Shaab’  (People’s Authority) and its twin component ‘Shuraka la Ujara’ (Partners, Not Wage Earners). In the early 1970s, ‘Lijan Shaabiya’ (People’s Committees) emerged all over the country to serve as the means by which the people themselves could exercise direct control over the running of public affairs. This initial step brought a degree of decentralization in the political process, formally subordinated the administrative apparatus to popular wishes, and pointed at the direction of collective decision-making. The 1977 Declaration proclaimed the establishment of direct democracy. According to its wording, the citizens at large, through the General People’s Congress, replaced the Revolutionary Command Council as the highest political authority, and the General People’s Committee, appointed by the General People’s Congress, replaced the Council of Ministers as the highest executive body.

Central in current Libyan political thought is the notion of people’s sovereignty, which (as well expressed by Abdul Fatah Shahada in his book ‘Democracy’) is the “sum total of individual sovereignties.” The assumption is that the latter may be maintained only if the individual has the opportunity to contribute directly, and not through representatives, to the decision-making process. Hence, all Libyan citizens are expected to reflect their views directly – not in one parliament of a few hundred deputies, but in hundreds of congresses utilised by tens of thousands of ordinary citizens. Such a multitude will necessarily exhibit differences of opinion, which will clash and possibly harmonise, as much as possible, through open debate. Committees, elected by such congresses, are accountable only to the people and may be recalled or changed by them, but are expected to execute definite decisions. The Libyan system uses the word ‘elevation’ instead of ‘election’, and avoids the campaigning that characterizes classic political parties and rewards only the well-to-do.

Making policy

‘Al-Mu’tamar al-Shaabi al-Asasiya’, the Basic People’s Congress, is organised on a territorial basis and is the primary institutional vehicle through which the men and women in the street voice their opinions. These congresses have judicial power to issue legislation, draw up economic plans, ratify agreements, formulate public policies, and “elevate” as well as supervise committees. The “non-basic congresses”, on the other hand, integrate the resolutions of the basic ones. There are also vocational congresses, set up in corporations, production units and other institutions. Apart from the local ‘Al-Mu’tamar al-Baladiya’ or the Municipal People’s Congresses, there is the ‘Al-Mu’tamar al-Shaabi al-Amm’, which is the national coordinating organ of all the people’s congresses. All resolutions are thus eventually streamlined into binding public policies.

It would be possible to elaborate further on the structure and application of the system. Even from the above, however, one can deduce, that Libyan society is trying to avoid the subjugation of the majority, and argues that the system of governance in Western societies favours the interests of monopoly capital, whereas and in the former Stalinist models it favours the single-party apparatus. This unique system in Libya has, according to some commentators, some shortcomings, inter alia, in terms of attendance, initiative to speak up, and effective control. Nevertheless, the experiment should arouse interest especially among those studying democratic theory and practice. It merits serious – and not prejudiced - consideration.      

(DIPLOMAT  -  November 2005  -  Ankara)