US-educated professor named Libya's new PM
Source: Agencies |
November 2, 2011, Wednesday
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A UNITED States-educated engineering professor with little political experience is Libya's new prime minister, a choice that suggests the country's interim rulers may be trying to find a government leader palatable both to the West and to Libyans who distrust anyone connected to the former regime.
Abdurrahim el-Keib was chosen late on Monday by the National Transitional Council, with 26 of 51 votes. He is to appoint a new interim government within two weeks that will pave the way for the drafting of a constitution, as well as general elections.
He replaces outgoing interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril, who had pledged to step down after victory over Moammar Gadhafi's regime
Jibril was increasingly embattled in his last months in office, attacked by Libya's Islamists as too secular, and by others as a former Gadhafi regime adviser who spent most of the country's eight-month civil war outside Libya while revolutionary forces were fighting Gadhafi's troops on the battlefield.
Jibril has won credit, however, for his role in helping secure international support for the revolution from Western powers, such as France and Britain, who led the push to give the uprising the NATO air support that played a key role in Gadhafi's defeat.
The previous interim government was an impromptu group of activists and former regime officials who defected after the uprising against Gadhafi erupted in mid-February.
El-Keib, an NTC member from Tripoli, is free of some of Jibril's main liabilities.
Unlike Jibril, who was an economic adviser under the former regime, el-Keib spent most of his professional career outside Libya and appears untainted by any ties to Gadhafi.
His background might make him more palatable to rebel commanders whose hatred for Gadhafi is far more visceral than those of most NTC members, who like el-Keib are disproportionately returned exiles and who tend to be lawyers and academics.
El-Keib could also appeal to the West, at a time when some of the gloss has come off of Libya's revolution due to reports of alleged human rights abuses by revolutionary militias and by the videotaped abuse of a captured Gadhafi before his death.
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