Can democratic Libya stabilize, unify divided country post-Gaddafi era?

Washington, Oct 21 (ANI): The death of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi might led his opponents to celebrate within his country and across the world, but some political analysts say that the biggest question that arises in the post-Gaddafi era is whether a democratic and representative government would be able to stabilize and unify a historically divided society in the absence of the kind of authoritarian rule that kept Libya together for four decades.

They fear that the prospects for orderly transition in Libya, a traditionally divided, tribal society, are not good, the Christian Science Monitor reports.

However, one of the factors they agree on is that Libyans will not be trying to sustain a "democracy" imposed from the outside.

"We would actually feel fairly pessimistic about the prospects for this [transition] to be successful and stable," Professor Michael Greig, an expert in international conflict management at the University of North Texas in Denton, said.

"One of the key factors for survival of a new democracy is the social cohesion of the society," Greig said on the basis of his conclusions on his study of 41 political transitions around the world over the last 170 years.

"The more diverse the society, the less stable these new regimes tend to be," he adds, noting that Libya is a hard-to-unify tribal culture with ethnic diversity.

However, he expressed optimism over the fact that Libya's political transition was accomplished by indigenous forces and was not imposed from the outside.

"One area of optimism would be that Libya is not Iraq and Afghanistan where the change in regimes was imposed by an outside power. Those kinds of regimes tend to struggle pretty significantly," he added.

Gaddafi, who ruled Libya for 42 years, died on Thursday as his last stronghold fell to the Libyan forces that drove him from power. There were conflicting initial reports of the specific circumstances of his death, with some saying that he was killed in Sirte, his hometown, while others said he died while fleeing it. (ANI)