AFTER a brief bout of euphoria to mark the second anniversary of the rebellion against Muammar Qaddafi on February 17th, Libyans soon sank back into the less joyful realisation that political, economic and security reforms are proceeding at a snail’s pace at best.

Days before the anniversary, the national congress, a proto-parliament elected last July to supervise the writing of a new constitution, decided instead to call a fresh election to a new 60-strong commission. It would then be asked to take on the job. This may add a year to the original timetable, which envisaged an election in the next few months to a full-blown parliament enshrined in a new constitution.

The recent arrest of four foreign Christian missionaries in Benghazi, Libya’s biggest eastern city, on charges of proselytising, still a crime under a law inherited from the Qaddafi era, is a reminder of how much Libya needs a constitution to clarify what the new order permits.

Other laws from the past are further deterring investment. The congress has failed to revoke a law enacted by the previous administration, known as the “national transitional council”, which limits foreign ownership in a Libyan company to 49%. Jocularly known as “the oligarchs’ law”, since it favours rich Libyans who did well under Qaddafi, it has put off many foreign businessmen from investing in companies they are not allowed to control.

Meanwhile, violence persists, especially on the country’s periphery. Jihadist militias have reappeared in the east, running checkpoints in Benghazi and in Derna, further east along the coast, which has long had a reputation for hosting extreme Islamists. Five months after such people stormed the American consulate in Benghazi and killed the ambassador there, no one has been charged with the crime.

In the west and south, smugglers and bandits are battling each other to control the flow of petrol, arms, drugs and people across the border. Elsewhere, militias refuse to be integrated into a central security force. The most powerful outfits, in the cities of Misrata and Zintan, which led the revolt against Qaddafi, answer only to the city authorities.

These militias in turn help make up the so-called Libyan Shield, a parallel national force, which operates at the request, rather than at the order, of the defence ministry. Many of these militias are disciplined, but they reinforce a growing impression of a country of city-states.

The civil service is emerging as a particular obstacle to reform. Demonstrators gathered recently to back a proposed law to remove all Qaddafi-era officials from positions of power. “It is necessary to remove them if we want to move forward,” said Idris Nouraddin, a Misrata lawyer. “They may not be bad people, but it is like someone who has been smoking for 40 years. You tell them that this is a new regime, a new way, where nobody smokes, but they have got used to smoking.” Yet if all civil servants who held senior jobs under the previous regime are ousted, the economy may grind even more rapidly to a halt.

The central government’s impotence is illustrated by a visit to Tripoli’s national congress, which has lost physical control of the chamber where it is supposed to sit. Instead, the building is occupied by a group of wounded veterans of the rebellion, who are protesting against the failure of the defence ministry to pay them pensions. Rather than have them thrown out, the lawmakers opted to hold sessions in a tent on the grounds of a local hotel.