Law targeting former Qaddafi aides likely to inflame tension

TRIPOLI: A bill banning associates of former dictator Muammar Qaddafi from politics risks inflaming tensions in Libya and could see top officials including the premier and the assembly chief removed from their posts.
The bill, first proposed in December, will target those who worked in 36 job categories during Qaddafi’s four decades in power.
Supporters of the new law say that it has popular backing “out of respect for the sacrifices made by the country’s martyrs” who were killed fighting the former regime in the 2011 uprising.
In its current draft, the bill could remove many of the country’s new leaders from their posts, including Mohammed Megaryef, president of the General National Congress (GNC) and Libya’s highest political authority, his deputy Jumaa Attiga and Prime Minister Ali Zeidan.
Observers said that the bill moved one step closer to ratification on Wednesday, when the assembly made a change to the interim constitutional declaration making it impossible to appeal the law before it is passed.