Dad, Can I Borrow The Country?

The son of Libya's mercurial leader, Muammar Gaddafi, says he wants to change Libya. But there are stiff obstacles to reform

By Vivienne Walt/Tripoli Monday, Apr. 12, 2010
    • Sabri Elmhedwi / EPA

    Saif Gaddafi, possible heir to Muammar Gaddafi

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    More Than a Man of the West
    No one looms larger than Saif in the push for change. Given that he was raised in the bosom of the revolution and holds no official government position, that is unusual. Saif was born a little under three years after his father's bloodless 1969 coup. After graduating in engineering in Libya, he earned an M.B.A. in Vienna, and then a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics.

    To many Americans and Britons, Saif is best known for successfully negotiating the release from a Scottish jail of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Convicted of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Scotland — an attack which killed 270 people — al-Megrahi returned to a hero's welcome in Tripoli last August with Saif by his side. The move cemented Saif's standing among millions of ordinary Libyans. "After that, Saif could no longer be accused of being infected with Western values," says Noman Benotman, a former leader in the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, who fought alongside al-Qaeda in Afghanistan until 2000. Benotman is a lot less famous than al-Megrahi, but his collaboration with Saif may actually be the clearest sign that Gaddafi Junior is serious about reform. Saif brought Benotman to Libya in 2007 and then helped him negotiate a truce with hundreds of jailed LIFG militants, effectively severing their links with al-Qaeda. On March 23, Saif secured the release of 214 LIFG members from jail, including its three top leaders.

    Tall and lean with gold-rimmed glasses and a shaved head, Saif speaks fluent English and German, and is as comfortable in London as he is in Tripoli. A set of photo books called Hip Hotels sits on a table in his entrance hall. Despite his privileged lifestyle, his name creeps frequently into conversations with businessmen, analysts, consultants and regular citizens. He is, many believe, the one person capable of pushing through serious change. He is also the West's favorite to succeed his father. Says U.S. ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz: "Many people consider Saif the de facto future of the country."

    If Saif is Libya's future, then he might just trigger a transformation every bit as far-reaching as his father's socialist coup. Already a Saif-created National Economic Development Board, run by U.S.-trained economist Mahmoud Gebril, is at work overhauling Libya's regulatory system. Saif has also proposed a new penal code, which would entail drafting a constitution for Libya, a move regarded for years by Muammar Gaddafi as unrevolutionary. "There must be an independent judiciary, and protection of the rights of people," Gebril says, pointing to postapartheid South Africa as a model. That would be a sharp departure from current-day Libya, where even the intellectuals who gather in Tripoli's cafés in the evenings, over water pipes and espressos, shy away from political talk. When I ask Saif how much personal freedom he wants for Libyans, he says without pause: "Everything, of course." Asked whether that includes the freedom to criticize leaders or organize against them, he cuts me short, saying, "I am talking about the level of freedom like in Holland."

    That's hard to imagine. His father's authority as Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution remains unimpeachable, and Libyans who challenge it can be jailed. But Saif believes his vision is not only possible, but inevitable. "Ask any Libyan," he says. "They want an efficient and modern country. If you are against that, you are an idiot."

    In a country where most people have only ever known his father's rule, Saif says Libyans have grown impatient for change. Last February, when President Gaddafi ended his one-year term as the head of the African Union, the organization passed a resolution giving itself the power to expel or impose sanctions on leaders who seize power through force. The message was not lost on Libyans. "In black Africa, we see real democracy, real elections, real parliaments, real constitutions," Saif says. "Why don't we have the same as them?"

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