To everyone’s surprise, Saif al-Islam, 49, wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, appeared on Sunday, November 14 in one of the application centers. Allure of a wise man, glasses and gray beard, traditional costume and brown turban tied in the Bedouin style as his father did, he signed all the official documents, accompanied by his lawyer before leaving, with his voter card. It had been ten years since we had seen him in public.
That’s done! The great return of #SaifAlislam #Gaddafi. Officially a candidate, the presidential campaign in #Libya will take a new direction. pic.twitter.com/OQr6zYqZgJ
– Hasni Abidi (@hasniabidi) November 14, 2021
The election is set to take place – in theory – on December 24, the culmination of a laborious UN-sponsored process aimed at pacifying the country, turning the page on a decade of chaos. Ten years during which, after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, carried away by the popular revolt, the country turned into a veritable fratricidal battlefield, caught between two rival camps, in the East, the militias of General Haftar, in the West, the troops of the government of national unity.
But the modalities of the ballot are disputed, December 24, it is a date in which no one believes except visibly Saïf al-Islam. His candidacy is not likely to calm things down. In the past we saw him succeed his father: it was he who negotiated the release of Bulgarian nurses in 2007 with Nicolas Sarkozy, he who in the process announced the signing of an armaments agreement with France.
After the death of the dictator in 2011, it is a disgrace for the entire Gaddafi clan. Saif al Islam was captured by rebel militias, sentenced to death before finally being released in 2017.
He then disappears in the wild until this summer, where he reappears in an interview with New York Times. Interview in which he announces his return and says he wants “restore Libya’s lost unity“, convinced that the charges against him could be dropped if the Libyans chose him as their leader.
A speech that can appeal to a fringe of the population, exhausted by shortages, the economic crisis, insecurity, and which remembers with a certain nostalgia the Gaddafi years, synonymous with cruelty and stability. In this context he can appear as the providential man.