| "He can stage his own coup when he's old enough. That's what I did, by Gar!" |
Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi played down speculation that he is grooming his son to replace him, saying Friday that succession by family members is not part of his North African republic's political makeup. "There is no succession in the (Libyan) republic's regime," the 61-year-old Gadhafi said when asked during an interview on the Arab Al-Jazeera network whether his son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, will succeed him. Since staging a 1969 coup, the elder Gadhafi has run Libya with an iron fist, outlawing all forms of opposition under the guise of handing power to his country's 5 million people. But in recent years, speculation has mounted that Gadhafi has been providing his 32-year-old son with highly visible duties, such as negotiating the release of hostages, in a bid to prepare him for leadership. While Seif al-Islam, one of Gadhafi's eight children from two wives, has previously rejected talk of any future succession, his father has rarely gone public to play down the notion.