Seif al-Islam Kadhafi, 49 years old, remains in the race for the highest office in Libya. The Sebha Court of Appeal, in the south of the country, on Thursday, December 2, 2021 ordered his reinstatement as a candidate in the presidential election on December 24. The information, reported by several Libyan media, was confirmed by AFP with the entourage of the candidate. The latter had appealed earlier in the day before this court against the decision of the Electoral Authority to reject his candidacy. “It is first of all a victory for justice, and then that of the will of the people”, welcomed his lawyer Khaled al-Zaydi, after the hearing.
كل الشكر والتقدير لقضاة ليبيا الذين غامروا بأنفسهم في سبيل كلمة الحق.
ونهدي هذا النصر لكل الشعب الليبي… وإهداء خاص إلى عماتي وأعمامي وإخوتي وخواتي الشعب الليبي… وإهداء خاص سلى عماتي وأعمامي وإخوتي وخواتي الذين تحملوا برد الليمحرالي وخوا برد الشعب الحملوا برد اليمهالي وخوا برد الين تحملوا برد اليمهالي وخواتي الشيمكمحرالي.
– سيف الإسلام معمر القذافي (@SyfAlqdhafy) December 2, 2021
(“All our thanks and gratitude to the Libyan judges who fought for the truth. We dedicate this victory to all the Libyan people … And a special dedication to my aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters who endured the cold nights and stayed awake to protect the court. “)
The son of the former Libyan dictator had submitted his candidacy in mid-November, relying on the support of those nostalgic for the old regime, disappointed by an interminable political transition against a backdrop of chaos. But the High National Electoral Commission (HNEC), which published on November 24 a preliminary list of 73 candidates, had excluded it in invoking articles of the electoral law stipulating that a candidate “must not have been convicted of a dishonorable crime” and must present a clean criminal record extract. Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, who was sentenced to death in 2015 after an expeditious trial and who subsequently received an amnesty, is currently wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
The court decision gave rise on Thursday 2 to scenes of jubilation in front of the court in Sebha, a semi-desert town located some 650 kilometers south of the capital Tripoli, where dozens of the candidate’s supporters were gathered, according to images from media. It comes after a series of incidents which for several days prevented Gaddafi’s son from appealing the rejection of his candidacy. Supporters of Eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar, himself a candidate, blocked access to the court for a week, prompting “great concern” in the interim government and the United Nations. These armed men finally withdrew from the perimeter of the court on December 2, allowing the three magistrates and the lawyer for Seif al-Islam to enter the building.
Besides the son of the “Guide”, the head of the interim government, Abdelhamid Dbeibah, Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who de facto controls eastern and part of southern Libya, as well as the influential ex-minister of the interior, Fathi Bachagha, are the most prominent candidates in the upcoming presidential election.
The culmination of a laborious process sponsored by the UN, the presidential election of December 24, and the legislative elections scheduled a month later, are supposed to turn the page on a decade of conflict since the fall in 2011 of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, killed during a popular revolt. If Libya is engaged in the home stretch of the presidential election, the persistence of disagreements between rival camps and tensions on the ground cast doubt on its holding.
Some 2.4 million Libyans have recovered their voter cards, out of a population of seven million, according to the electoral commission. Not without hitches: on social networks, some claimed not to have found their card, recovered according to them by others, fueling suspicions of fraud. The electoral commission indicated that more than 2,300 voter cards were stolen from five polling stations by armed men in the West, notably in Tripoli, on Wednesday, December 1, the day marking the end of the handing over of voting cards. voters at the polling stations.