According to local media, the controversial second son of the tyrant registered the necessary documentation to attend the country’s presidential elections.
Saif al Islam, son and presumed heir of the late Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi, today presented his candidacy for the presidential elections scheduled for December 24 in Libya, whose celebration is still in the air due to disputes between different rival groups.
According to local media, the controversial second son of the tyrant, wanted internationally for alleged crimes against humanity, has registered in the southern city of Sebha, capital of the south, the necessary documentation to attend what, if held, will be the first elections presidential elections in this North African country since the independence of Italy in 1951.
Saif al Islam, who during the first decade of this century emerged as the dialogical and modern offshoot of the regime, in contrast to his brother Mutassim – to whom his father handed over the responsibility of the security services and the toughest branch – had already announced the last July his intention to participate in the consultation during an interview with the newspaper “The New York Times”.
Captured on 19 November 2011 by militias in the western Libyan city of Zintan, a month after the murder of his father, Saif al Islam was sentenced to capital punishment by a Tripoli court that tried him in absentia for the refusal of his captors to free him.
However, in 2017, and in full advance of the eastern troops, the Abu Bakr al Siddiq Battalion released him and apparently handed him over to the forces under the control of Marshal Khalifa Hafter, tutor of the Parliament displaced in the eastern city of Tobruk. and a strong man of the country, who facilitated his amnesty and protected him from the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Since then, his whereabouts have always been unknown, although it is known that he has spent long periods in the south of the country, from where he tries to arouse the support of those known as “green”, nostalgic for the dictatorship that fell during the revolution of 2011.
Since then, Libya has been a failed state, a victim of chaos and civil war, in which power groups in Tripoli, the city-state of Misrata and Bengazi, the eastern capital, fight for control of power and its abundant energy resources.
Elections in the air
The elections, called a year ago by the Forum for Political Dialogue of Libya (FDPL), an unelected body created “ad Hoc” by the UN, are still in the air despite the intense efforts of France, the United States, Italy. , Germany, Spain and the United Nations itself to be held on the date indicated, which coincides with the day of independence.
The postponement option, which is supported by a large part of the rival Libyan forces, gained traction this week after the summit convened by France in Paris, which was attended by even the vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, changed the previous tone and He will alleviate it by assuring that December 24 is “the beginning of the electoral process”, subject to serious disputes.
Especially due to the lack of consensus around the new electoral law, approved by Parliament in Tobrouk, the last democratically elected in Libya (2014) and for years under the eastern government led by Hafter and not recognized by the UN .
And rejected by the Supreme Council of State, a kind of Senate created by the UN during its failed reconciliation plan in 2015.
The main point of friction is the requirements demanded by the presidential candidates, a career that Hafter himself and the Prime Minister of the National Government of Transitory Unity (GNU) are also expected to join, Abdul Hamid al Debeibah, a millionaire who made his fortune in the dictatorship. (I)
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