After a promising start, and much jubilation on the streets, Libya has slowly been regressing as it battles insurgents, Gaddafi loyalists, Islamists, unfettered migration across its porous desert borders and its uncontrollable militias.

The troubles first started off in Benghazi with bomb blasts and assassinations. But the violence quickly spread to other towns such as Misurata. Tripoli also saw its share of violence, as evidenced some months ago when rival militia groups battled for control of Tripoli’s airport.

That battle had left a number of dead and injured and since then, matters have not really improved. It was, of course, bound to happen. Gaddafi structured his Jamahariya in such a way that everything was dependent on him and his family. The army – a largely ragtag bunch of foreign fighters – was led by his sons. There was no government to speak of. The police also answered directly to him. Even the defection of generals did not allay suspicions as they were assassinated.

So therefore, it is quite obvious that the militias want to retain their ‘authority’. Many of the men who are in the militias are the same men that fought with improvised grenades, explosives and crossbows against the Gaddafi regime. They trust each other like only men who have fought together trust each other.

Each and every city raised its own army to oust the regime troops and they succeeded. Now, they all view each other with suspicion, many believing that other militias are controlled by Gaddafi loyalists.

Sources in Tripoli have told us that after the bombs went off on Sunday, there were random checkpoints set up all over the city by different militias. There is no sense of law and order, just an ad hoc sense of martial law – controlled by the militias.

The trouble is that Libya’s democratically-elected government has very little clout – it is all in the hands of those who liberated the country. According to the source, their intentions seem genuine and they will not join together as one army under a central command because of deep misgivings and distrust. But it has to be done. Libya must find an able and charismatic commander who will have the ability to unite these militias. The problem is, who do they choose? Will it be Misurata’s charismatic bearded and sunglass-donning commander? Will it be Tripoli’s former garrison general? Will it be someone from Benghazi? Libya risks falling apart. We have already written about how, in reality, it is a country hammered together. Historically, it was always divided between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (west and east) and it looks like it might actually happen again.

The Libyan people are desperate to become a fully-fledged democracy, but power struggles are holding them back. The people are united in their cause, but the legacy of Gaddafi is still haunting them and that is the divide and rule strategy he implemented for 40 years, along with the absence of any political, policing and judicial infrastructure. It all needs to be built from scratch and one can only hope that the Libyan people will show the same determination to do so, as they did when fighting for their own freedom.