“We guarantee that we are after a nation that respects human rights and does not permit abuse of human rights. But we need time,’’ he said late Monday after being elected.
He replaces outgoing interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril, who had pledged to step down after the fall of Khadafy’s regime.
Keib holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University and joined the teaching staff of the University of Alabama in 1985, according to a biography posted by a former employer, the Petroleum Institute in the United Arab Emirates. Keib also taught at North Carolina State, the biography said.
Jibril, also a US-educated technocrat, came under attack in his last months in office by Libya’s Islamists as too secular and by others as a former regime adviser who spent most of the country’s eight-month civil war outside Libya.
Jibril won credit for his role in helping secure international support for the revolution, including from France and Britain, which led the push to give the uprising the NATO air support that played a key role in Khadafy’s defeat.
The previous interim government was a hastily selected group of activists and former regime officials who defected after the uprising against Khadafy erupted in mid-February.
The transition council appointed an “Executive Office’’ that served as a de facto Cabinet. Even before Khadafy’s fall, the council said that after the war, a more carefully selected government would oversee an eight-month transition period.
Keib, a council member from Tripoli, is free of some of Jibril’s liabilities. Unlike Jibril, who was an economic adviser under the former regime, Keib spent most of his professional career outside Libya and appears untainted by ties to Khadafy.
Mohammed al-Harizi, a council member from Tripoli, welcomed Keib’s selection, and said he, unlike Jibril, spent the war in Libya and “knows what is happening on the ground.’’
