A son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has announced his charity is withdrawing from politics, in an indication he has lost ground in a power struggle with conservatives who oppose his efforts at reform. The Gaddafi Foundation is one of the main levers of influence for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who is viewed as a possible successor to his father but who has clashed with rivals over his plans to reform the oil exporting country.
"The Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation announced that it will withdraw from work in the political sphere and all the issues connected to political reform and human rights," the charity said in a statement. "It will redouble its efforts to carry out its core duties of development and charitable work ... by offering assistance and relief to people in need, primarily in the countries of Africa," said the Arabic-language statement.
The statement said the foundation's board had taken the decision because activities with political overtones were casting a shadow on the charity's humanitarian work, which focuses mainly on sub-Saharan Africa. It quoted Saif al-Islam as saying: "I'm confident that this shift will enable us to direct our efforts towards ... improving the standard of life for people in the region with the most poor people in the world."
A long-running turf war between Saif al-Islam and powerful conservatives, including some in his father's entourage, has escalated in the past few months. Twenty journalists working for a news agency which Saif al-Islam controls were briefly arrested, the head of his media group stepped down and a newspaper that was Libya's main mouthpiece for reform stopped printing.
One Libyan analyst said the decision by the Gaddafi Foundation to bow out of politics showed that Saif al-Islam's power has been curtailed. "It seems that the rules of the game have changed now between (Saif al-Islam) Gaddafi and other parties who are working to limit his power," said Ashur Shamis, London-based editor of akhbar-libyaonline.com, an online newspaper.
"This puts Saif al-Islam in a different framework. I think his policy of reform and so on must now be put under doubt." Saif al-Islam, who has no formal government post, helped broker an end to decades of sanctions on Libya over its banned weapons programmes and allegations it supported militant groups. His influence has fluctuated depending on who held the upper hand in his turf war with conservatives. He announced in 2008 he was retiring from public life, but he soon made a comeback.
Libya's internal politics are watched closely by oil majors such as BP, ExxonMobil and ENI which have invested billions of dollars in Libya, home to Africa's largest proven oil reserves. Many investors, as well as foreign governments, worry that fighting within the ruling elite could cause instability, and also that if conservatives become dominant they could take the country back into international isolation.