While Libya's political figures wait for the announcement of final election results, they have been discussing with journalists and each other whether or not they want to form coalitions or blocs within the General National Congress. What they have not yet articulated is a clear policy of what should be done to address Libya's most pressing problem: disarming the revolutionary brigades. On the Foreign Affairs website, the Carnegie Endowment's Frederic Wehrey gives some suggestions, and demonstrates the perils of jumping to conclusions about Libya's new leadership before all the results are in. The author did not take into account the possibile affiliations of the individual candidates and wrongly assumes in this piece that the successes of the National Forces Alliance will automatically equate to a leadership position for Mahmoud Jibril. See Libya's Militia Menace: The Challenge after the Elections.All of this points to a government that has ceded an unhealthy degree of authority to local militias and tribal intermediaries. So the Jibril administration's first order of business will be to right the security sector and bolster the judiciary quickly. Much of its work will should focus on dismantling or institutionalizing two ad-hoc security bodies that the transitional government created or tolerated: the Supreme Security Committees (SSC), which fall under the Ministry of Interior, and the Libyan Shield Forces, which are nominally attached to the Ministry of Defense.
Libya's Militia Menace