{"id":330,"date":"2004-11-08T21:44:05","date_gmt":"2004-11-09T03:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=330"},"modified":"2004-11-08T21:46:21","modified_gmt":"2004-11-09T03:46:21","slug":"kadhafi-committed-to-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=330","title":{"rendered":"Kadhafi Committed to Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

File this one<\/a> under the “Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it” category.<\/p>\n

Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi is committed to introducing direct democracy in his North African nation, his son Sayef al-Islam Kadhafi said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Speaking on BBC World Service radio, the younger Kadhafi said that in the wake of regional government elections three months ago, nation-wide polls — under the gaze of US and European observers — would be “the next step” and that they would be held “soon”.<\/p>\n

“The Libyan people want to modernise their economy, they want to reform their system, they want to deepen direct democracy,” he said. “We will do this through a collective action.”<\/p>\n

“In Libya, next time, everything should be democratic from A to Z. This is the desire of my father. This is the desire of the people.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kadhafi’s motivations for democracy are obvious. With the president’s re-election, Bush’s drive towards a successful democracy in the Arab world will continue. Right now, very goods seats are still available on the “Arab Freedom” bus. An open and democratic Libya would certainly reap economic rewards from the West, as well as pushing itself towards greater prominence in the Arab world and international community.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there’s a major hitch.<\/p>\n

Asked whether his father — who rules Libya with no formal title — would contest the presidency, he replied with a laugh: “I think he is going to be the leader, and not president.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Kadhafi regime simply does not understand democracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

File this one under the “Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it” category. Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi is committed to introducing direct democracy in his North African nation, his son Sayef al-Islam Kadhafi said in an interview. Speaking on BBC World Service radio, the younger Kadhafi said that in the wake of regional government […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-general","category-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}