Personality cult goes a long way: Although Qaddafi never explicitly sought or claimed a title in his new government, he grew a cult of personality that turned him into “the leader” whose name is only cautiously mentioned on the streets. Qaddafi famously rejects electoral democracy, favoring instead what he believes is true democratic governance: a leader of the people, such as himself. In the West, Qaddafi writes, voters “move silently toward the ballot box, like the beads in a rosary, to cast their votes in the same way that they throw rubbish in dustbins.”