THE GADDAFIS AND THE VOID OF INHERITED LEADERSHIP

 

The death of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, tragically assassinated in his home on February 4, 2026, closes an ambiguous and profoundly tragic chapter in recent Libyan history. This is not merely the end of a controversial figure, but the definitive collapse of an illusion: that of a supposed “revolutionary royalty,” the banal claim that power can be inherited, even when the regime sustaining it collapsed terribly in blood and ruins.

The favored son of the dictator Muammar Gaddafi (violently overthrown in 2011), Saif al-Islam was presented for years as the modern face of the Libyan regime. Though he held no public office, he was always seen as a “de facto prime minister.” While his father cultivated authoritarian theatricality and tremendous repression, along with a personalistic cult, his son Saif al-Islam built a cosmopolitan image. A graduate of the London School of Economics—not with honors, but with substantial donations to the university’s funds—he spoke the language of global governance, civil society, and institutional reforms. In many international forums, he positioned himself as the bridge between the Libyan dictatorship and a probable reconciliation with the Western world. He seemed to embody a controlled transition toward a more open system. He made everyone doubt and also organized memorable parties with models and celebrities.

But that narrative always carried an element of imposture, and the airs of an elegant world where Libya could Westernize and abandon terrorism evaporated quickly. The reformist discourse never translated into a real renunciation of the patrimonial power structure. Saif did not challenge the core architecture of the regime: the absolute concentration of decisions in the family circle, the systematic repression of dissent, the instrumentalization of tribes and factions. His “modernization” was, at bottom, a makeup job on authoritarianism.

When the civil war erupted in 2011, the mask fell. Far from becoming a mediator or genuine reformer, Saif al-Islam defended the regime’s continuity with incendiary rhetoric. Even after his father’s lynching and the institutional collapse, he persisted in the fantasy of being the “natural heir.” In a country fragmented by militias, rival governments, and ethnic fractures, he imagined that his surname alone would suffice to rebuild the lost legitimacy.

There lies the tragedy of arrogance. Believing that power is a dynastic, almost mystical attribute is to ignore the deeply contingent nature of politics. Gaddafi’s regime was not a traditional monarchy with shared historical roots; it was an authoritarian experiment sustained by coercion, oil rents, international terrorism, and clientelist networks. When those pillars cracked, there was no throne left to inherit.

Saif al-Islam never understood—or never wanted to understand—that Libya did not need an heir, but a true political, moral, and institutional reconstruction. He implicitly bet that the chaos of the civil war would restore his relevance. In a country where armed factions vie for territories and resources, disorder can seem like an opportunity for someone offering a symbol of unity, even if that symbol is stained by the past. But chaos does not redeem; it only prolongs decomposition. Saif wanted to return to power and was fought.

The Libyan case demonstrates that no one can play at “eternal royalty” in the 21st century. Contemporary political history is full of heirs who confused their surname with legitimacy. Legitimacy is not transmitted by blood, nor by prestigious diplomas. It is built through responsibility, limits on power, and genuine recognition of social plurality. Saif had a Western academic education, but he never internalized democracy’s fundamental principle: power is transitory and must be subject to impersonal rules.

The problem is not exclusively Libyan. In many societies, “daddy’s boys” within political families believe they must inherit privileges, influence, and public centrality by simple biological continuity. That logic ends up harming them and, worse still, impoverishes public life. Authentic leadership is not born in the comfort of a surname, but in the experience of personal struggle, in the risk assumed, in the capacity to face defeats, ruptures, and profound changes. Those who have not passed through the test of real conflict rarely understand the ethical dimension of power. Here emerges a broader philosophical lesson: power admits no symbolic substitutes.

Power cannot be delegated as if it were family property, nor administered as sentimental inheritance. True leadership is always an uncertain, fragile, and morally demanding conquest. Only those who weather history's storm—who expose themselves to criticism, failure, and transformation—acquire genuine authority. Everything else is simulacrum. And simulacra, sooner or later, dissolve in the face of reality. Saif and his sad assassination mark the end of a political dynasty, where the Gaddafis faded without fanfare or glory.