TRIPOLI - Libya's incoming prime minister Abdelrahim al-Keib is to announce his cabinet in coming days and former rebel factions who fought to oust Muammar Gaddafi are jostling for influence over who will get the top posts in the new defence forces. Although few have publicly announced they want the defence minister and army chief of staff positions, shows of chest-beating by commanders and their entourages are a clear sign that factions want to sway the new prime minister. At a horse-racing track near the seafront in Tripoli, a parade of ragtag fighters marched past a VIP delegation with Tripoli's Islamist military commander for the National Transitional Council (NTC), Abdel Hakim Belhadj, sitting at the front. “We must build a national army ... to rebuild the country. We have to build the country again,” Belhadj told the crowd of fighters, women and children who had been ferried into the area to wave flags and celebrate the liberation of Libya. A fighter jet swooped by and parachutists landed in front of the podium to roars of applause. “We hope that Keib can form a strong government,” Belhadj said in a speech, emphasizing the need for former rebels to have a place in the new government. The NTC has endorsed Belhadj as the official military commander in Tripoli and justice minister Mohammed al-Allagi sat next to him throughout the parade. Although stating that he does not want an immediate role as defence minister, Belhadj - who says he controls 25,000 fighters - might be eyeing a political position in the the future. “I want to serve my nation with all the power and ability I can offer, but to choose where and how, it is too early to talk about this now,” he told Reuters in an interview last week. On the same day as Belhadj's victory march, fighters loyal to Abdullah Naker, a competing Tripoli-based commander and head of the Tripoli Revolutionary Council, spent the evening going through drafts of a press release that was a public refusal to acknowledge Belhadj as the principal voice of Libya's fighters. Men in military fatigues scurried around a 20-foot table, talking excitedly about their demands from Keib's government. “Injured fighters must be looked after,” one commander shouted over the buzz of discussion in the business centre of a 5-star hotel. “The army chief of staff position must be filled by someone who saw combat during the revolution.” Naker's men say Belhadj did not fight on the front lines during the war but suddenly appeared in the media spotlight when Tripoli fell to the revolutionary forces in late August.
