- published: 31 Aug 2012
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From 1969 to early 2011, the politics of Libya were determined de facto by Muammar Gaddafi, who had been in power since his coup against the Kingdom of Libya in 1969.
Gaddafi abolished the post-1951 Libyan Constitution and introduced his own political philosophy, based on his Green Book published in the 1970s. Gaddafi's system was known as Jamahiriya and was notionally legally based on the legislative General People's Congress (GPC), consisting of 2,700 representatives of Basic People's Congresses, and the executive General People's Committee, headed by a General Secretary, who reported to the Prime Minister and the President. However, alongside the entire "Jamahiriya sector" was the "revolutionary sector" headed by Muammar Gaddafi as "Brotherly Leader of the Revolution", the Revolutionary Committees, and the remaining members of the 12-person Revolutionary Command Council established in 1969. This "revolutionary sector" was not elected and could not be voted out of office and dictates the decision-making power of the "Jamahiriya sector". As a consequence, Gaddafi ruled as absolute autocrat until the collapse of his regime during the Libyan civil war.