Politics of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi

From 1969 to early 2011, the politics of Libya were determined de facto by Muammar Gaddafi, who had been in power since his overthrow of 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.

The "Jamahiriya sector" was overseen by the "revolutionary sector." This was headed by Muammar Gaddafi as "Brotherly Leader of the Revolution", the Revolutionary Committees, and the surviving members of the 12-person Revolutionary Command Council established in 1969. This "revolutionary sector" held office by virtue of having led the coup—officially described as "the Revolution"—and therefore was not subject to election. As a consequence, although Gaddafi held no governmental post after 1980, he maintained absolute control over the country until the collapse of his regime during the Libyan Civil War.

For the first seven years following the 1969 revolution, Colonel Gaddafi and 12 fellow army officers, the Revolutionary Command Council, began a complete overhaul of Libya's political system, society, and economy. On 2 March 1977, Gaddafi convened a General People's Congress (GPC) to proclaim the establishment of "people's power," change the country's name to the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and to vest, theoretically, primary authority in the GPC.

...
Wikipedia