It was getting smelly”. With these words, used to explain the removal of the body of the recently deceased Muammar Gaddafi from the refrigerator where it was being stored, Abdul-Mohammed Elshami, a Libyan fighter, encapsulated the complete loss of status undergone by the once revered dictator of 42 years.

The death of Gaddafi, who was killed after being discovered hiding in a drainage pipe in his home town of Sirte, is still shrouded in mystery. Whether he was executed or died of his wounds, that he didn’t live to be trialled and brought to justice could prove to be either a blessing or a curse for the fledgling Libyan democracy. Gaddafi’s death is not something that too many will mourn. But the question remains whether what may turn out to have been the summary execution of the Colonel will haunt Libya as it tries to establish itself as a democratic nation based on principles of justice.

The first thing to say is that no-one is sure yet whether the rebels did murder Gaddafi. The National Transitional Council (NTC) has reluctantly agreed to hold an inquest into the death, but the official line is that the ex-Libyan leader was wounded by gunfire in an exchange that followed the bombing of his fleeing convoy, and died later in an ambulance. However, video footage that portrays the rebels jostling Gaddafi after his capture has been accompanied by the suggestion that he was murdered by those same captors. Libya’s leading pathologist confirmed in the post-mortem that the death was due to a gunshot wound to the head.

Whether or not Gaddafi was executed, there is now no chance of justice being seen to be done. But while reconciliation has often proved integral for the recovery process in stricken states, one feels that if the NTC can say the right things, and begin the building of Libyan democracy in the spirit of the principles which condemn the murder of anyone, maniacal dictator or no, then the gory beginning to that process may prove unimportant. What’s more, even though a new Libyan government’s legitimacy might be knocked by this incident, it could be worth it. There is a fear that if Gaddafi had hung around in the Courts, resolute and defiant, the pockets of subdued loyalists that surely still exist would have been gradually emboldened, and Libya’s healing process impeded. The revolutionaries feared this power of Gaddafi’s to unite, even in death. Initially hoping to draw a line under the Colonel’s bloody regime by exhibiting his corpse for all to see, they have changed tack amid concerns over his martyrdom. Under pressure from the NTC, and alarmed by the crowds turning up to observe the former dictator’s lifeless body, he was given over to his family to be buried in a furtive service away from a cemetery. Whether Libya as a whole will be able to bury the memory of Gaddafi quite so easily remains to be seen.

The Institute for Government is housed in an original Nash Grade I listed building overlooking St James’ Park. It isn’t hard to imagine that these calm and elegant surroundings would be a welcome break for any politician who had worked tirelessly up and down Whitehall throughout Labour’s time in government. Andrew Adonis, however, is no ordinary politician. 

Adonis is eager to discuss all the work his think tank is producing, and, of course, the next general election. When asked about his new role, his relentless enthusiasm for all things policy takes over – though it becomes clear quite quickly that his move into the world of the think tank is unlikely to be a permanent one. “Did I enjoy government and being there making decisions? Yes, but my party’s out of government and there’s no point in crying over spilt milk. In four years’ time there’ll be another election and I shall be fighting jolly hard to get Labour back into power. While were in opposition, being able to play this charitable role is wholly worthwhile. We are the big society at the heart of Whitehall,” he jokes, in a rather shrewd reference to David Cameron’s flagship policy. 

Having completed something of a political odyssey, from the Social Democrats to the Liberal Democrats to the Labour party, Lord Adonis was hauled into the policy unit of Number 10 back in 1998 as an education advisor. After being handed a peerage in 2005 to become a junior education minister without any experience, there were suspicions he might just become another of ‘Tony’s Cronies’. But, to the surprise of many, he outlived Blair into Brown’s cabinet as Secretary of State for Transport and was said to be one of Labour’s key negotiators during the five days of coalition talks and media flurry.

Despite his new non-partisan role, Adonis doesn’t hesitate to criticise the present government, calling it a ‘pact of the unprincipled’. In his book, ex-Lib Dem minister David Laws claims that the current coalition as it stands was actually prompted by a divide in the Labour camp over what it wanted. Andrew sees things rather differently. “My own view is that if the Lib Dems had wanted to go in with the Labour party we could have negotiated a perfectly credible programme. What they can’t do, as David tries to do in his book, is somehow blame it on the Labour part. He can’t blame Labour for the fact that they chose to go in with the Tories.’ I can’t be sure whether his assertion that Labour was united in their readiness to form a coalition was a careful way of avoiding the question. However, what seems obvious is that many feel the future will work to Labour’s advantage. Adonis explains that it will mean Labour can now ‘sweep up’ alienated Liberal Democrat voters. He quickly corrects himself for using such a pejorative term, replacing it with ‘appeal to’, but it seems he can hardly contain his optimism at such a prospect for his party. 

Debating the future of the House of Lords is where he really gets going, however. Condemning the current system for its lack of accountability, he despairs how, as a minister in the House of Lords, he was never once called to give evidence before a House of Lords Committee. Though Labour removed all the hereditary peers from the Lords, many felt that they should have gone further. I remind him of a suggestion he made in The Guardian some years ago to relocate the House of Lords to Manchester. Expecting to be met with reluctance, or a cunning political side step, the former journalist grins and outlines his proposal in some detail.

“It’s perfectly doable and it should happen. It would have a transformational effect on the whole of our political culture”. The idea of shipping peers off to Salford Quays and selling the old office space in Westminster to pay for it might leave Lords and Ladies spluttering into their afternoon tea, but one has to admire his determination. “Idealism, that’s how you make change happen,” he says. “You know a hundred years ago giving votes for women was thought to be a ridiculous and impossible proposition…well it didn’t take long for that to become the law of the land.” This is the kind of audacious move that seems to characterise his career. Looking back at his policy record with Labour, he is clearly capable of using his influence to push through significant pieces of legislation; civil servants at the Department of Education referred to him as ‘muscles’. 

He takes his idealism from his hero Roy Jenkins, one of the ‘gang of four’ who founded the Social Democratic Party in 1981 when Labour moved to what Adonis calls the ‘loony undemocratic left’. Adonis himself was a member of the SDP when Labour was in the pockets of big trade union leaders. Interestingly, he has faced some of the same criticisms that Jenkins did in his career; with a liberal approach to market involvement in certain areas of public policy, some have struggled to differentiate Adonis’ beliefs from those of the Conservative party. Indeed, his two flagship policy successes, high speed rail and academies are both being continued under the coalition government. What’s more, few people today realise that Adonis was one the key players in the introduction of tuition fees back in 2000. A supporter of a student contribution to the cost of university education, he sees the new coalition policy as a fundamental distortion, not a fulfilment, of the one he helped forge six years ago.

Such a ‘distortion’ might cause him to rethink the introduction of the policy in the first place, but Adonis is not one for such regrets. “You should never not do the right thing because somebody might do the wrong thing in future,” he explains. “Look at the health service reforms, they’re turning the NHS upside down at the moment from a standing start, you know, a government that wants to engage in radical policies can do so, it doesn’t need to have precedent to justify it.” He may have a point, but the current Tory mantra seems to be ‘anything we do, Labour started it’ (privatisation of parts of the NHS, academies, tuition fees). Surely Labour has to take some responsibility for what can sometimes seem to be logical extensions of the arguments they provided for their initial policy proposals? This issue is particularly pertinent to Lord Adonis, who was even offered a place in Conservative government under Cameron. 

Perhaps the reason for Adonis’ remarkable cross-party appeal, though, is his highly pragmatic approach to policy making. During his time at the Department for Education he visited more schools than any education minister ever, as Secretary of State for Transport he conducted a nationwide rail tour and in his new role he undertook a nationwide tour of cities due for referendums on having an elected mayor. His approach is telling of his journalistic background, placing great weight on first hand knowledge of a problem from people on the ground. In fact, he tells me that he doesn’t believe policy should be “unnecessarily ideological”, and herein lies the crux of the puzzle; is he just a policy nerd, an opportunist or a pragmatist informed by ideology? “Part of my style of politics has been to constantly engage with those who make government work on the front line and who deliver services on the front line so that policy is practical and not theoretical or unnecessarily ideological.” 

There seems no doubt that Adonis will continue well into the future – at just 48 he is certainly at the younger end of the House of Lords. One question asked time and time again is whether he would ever stand for election as a Member of Parliament. I imagine it’s a challenge he would find difficult to resist. Indeed, few political pundits would put their money on where Andrew Adonis might be in ten years time. In his own words: “I’m a political animal – and I doubt that you’ve heard the last of me.”

What can you tell us about Nick Clegg’s upbringing, and how it has influenced him?

His family is massive, and by that I mean his wider family, not just his wife and children, though they are also very important to him. His two grandmothers are of vital importance, even though they’re both long dead. His paternal grandmother lost everything in the Russian Revolution and became a British liberal, while his maternal grandmother was nearly starved to death in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). It means Clegg has had all the access to horrendous suffering without having experienced it himself, thus leaving him without the chips on his shoulder that some victims of suffering carry for the rest of their lives.

How has Clegg performed in government – what have been his successes and his failures?

Generally pretty well, though he had a horrendous first three months, when he simply didn’t have the civil service back up to deal with the myriad tasks thrown at him. That was the time when the Bank of England put pressure on the coalition for immediate scathing cuts, the tuition fees compromise was worked out, and the NHS reforms dumped on him before he’d really got his feet under the desk. Since May’s defeat of the AV referendum, Clegg has played a largely low profile role, which is fine for the short term, but before too long he’s going to have to get noticed. He may well be doing a great job behind the scenes, but no one ever got credit politically for behind the scenes work if it wasn’t accompanied by some high-profile achievement. 

How do you think this has affected his morale over the course of his time in power?

As a person, it’s very difficult to dent his morale. He’s an eternal optimist who surrounds himself with friends from outside politics and seeks refuge in his family. His three boys of 9, 7 and 2 aren’t going to view the deputy Prime Minister as a very important person but just as Dad.  His staff speak about how he comes into the office on a day when there’s been some bad news, and while he takes the news seriously, he doesn’t get too worried about it while many of his staff do. Politically his morale will be a bit fragile, but in the early days of the coalition there were many who didn’t give it six months, so to have established it as a form of government with some permanence – at least until 2015 – must feel like a real achievement to an upbeat personality such as his.

If Nick Clegg leaves parliament, what do you imagine his next step will be? How much ground is there in speculation he might join the EU?

He’ll do something with people. I don’t buy this idea that he’ll take a job with the EU – he’s done that and he left Brussels because he felttoo detached from the people he represented. If he’s to take on a big international job, it’s more likely to be as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees than anything bureaucratically EU-like. But don’t lookfor his post parliamentary career just yet – he has something about him that makes me believe he will bounce back at some stage, and if that bounce back comes during the TV debates in the run-up to the 2015 election, he may well be in parliament for a while yet.

In 2006 the world asked whether the first democratic elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo for 40 years could prevent the country from returning to violence. Following four decades of dictatorship, the bloodiest regional conflict since WW2 and having earned the ignominious title of ‘rape capital of the world’, it was deemed essential that the DRC elect a President who could build a broad coalition in an attempt to consolidate peace and create infrastructure throughout the country. Relations with neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda, which were instrumental in previous rounds of violence, would also need to be carefully managed.

Whilst progress on the latter point has been made, internal development, implementation of the 2006 constitution and coalition building have been much harder. For the time being, the upcoming elections on November 28th represent the best chance for the Congolese people to retain a check on the excesses of their leaders and to pursue reform. Without domestic opposition to call for transparency, repression and abuse are likely to increase in Congo and any ensuing frustration may tip over into more violent forms of protest.   

The last election was deemed to be transparent. The challenges faced this time mean that the DRC risks sliding backwards. The international community will be contributing fewer observers and training too few police officers to oversee the elections. The second round ‘run-off’ phase used in 2006, essential to ensuring that the President has majority support, has been replaced by a single round competition – not only does this favour the incumbent, but according to some experts, the winner could govern with as little as 20% of the vote.   

There is an oft-repeated phrase heard in certain parts of Congo: “Si Kabila perd, c’est la guerre”, or ‘If Kabila loses, there will be war’. Whilst few expect the outcome of the Congolese poll to result in heightened and sustained violence, there is every reason to feel anxious, and therefore every reason to demand free and fair elections.    

Discussions with Congolese political parties have taken place in neighbouring states in a bid to avoid clashes. Yet, like so many elections across Africa, the November ballot in the DRC is centred on the personalities of the contenders. This implies that these elections are about power, not policy. Indeed, President Kabila’s power resides in a series of ad hoc alliances with leaders at various levels throughout the country and policymaking is conducted through a small clique of advisors, rather than via the politicians in charge of the relevant ministries.

Despite having five years to prepare, the government is failing to coordinate enthusiasm for these elections effectively, risking insecurity. There is one legislative position which has attracted 1,500 candidates, meanwhile, six weeks from the proposed election and the polling cards were still to be printed. In a country the size of Western Europe, which has just a few thousand miles of paved roads and 62,000 polling stations, the logistical challenges alone are daunting. Yet the independent election commission, CENI, had failed to provide a detailed operational plan; the fact that the head of the commission, Daniel Ngoy Mulundu, is an old ally of Kabila’s entourage speaks for itself. 

Another critical consideration that affects elections across Africa is the role of the young  – the average age in the DRC is just 18. Whilst the government has done little to further voter education since 2006, young people care passionately about issues such as violence in the East, rape, child soldiers and unemployment, so their significance in these elections cannot be ignored. One needs only look to the role that young people have played recently across North Africa and the Middle East: a failure to engage with the youth of Congo will have a serious impact on the country’s future. 

Despite the Congolese elections being only a short time away, there are many uncertainties and the socio-political environment remains tense. These elections will have a defining impact on the future of the DRC and Central Africa, and represent an opportunity to overturn many years of neglect and dysfunction. The International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, recently stated, “We will never have a stable Africa, unless there is a stable DRC”. Reflecting this sentiment, DfID is projected to increase its spending in the DRC to £198 million per year from now until 2015. In sending such a high volume of aid, the UK has a responsibility to the UK taxpayer as well as a moral obligation to the Congolese people to ensure this money is used effectively and does not end up in the pockets of corrupt elites. 

Free Fair DRC is a non-partisan organisation who have been working alongside NGOs, Congolese Diaspora and politicians around the world to coordinate attention on the elections in Congo. Accountable and responsive governance is needed in order to overcome the debilitating cycle of poverty and violence and unlock DRC’s potential. This election is a key step toward that goal.   You can help by writing to your MP and MEP and asking them to support free and fair elections in the DRC; finding us on Facebook or Twitter, and by going to www.FreeFairDRC.com and signing our supporters’ pledge.