While several candidatures have just been validated by the High National Electoral Commission, one month before the Libyan presidential election, that of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was rejected. Illegally, according to confidential documents that the Journal of Africa was able to obtain.
It is a real pre-electoral battle that began in Libya. One month before the presidential election, the High National Electoral Commission (HNEC) distributes the good and bad points. While 73 candidatures were accepted by the electoral institution, a refusal is particularly debated: among the 25 candidatures rejected, the refusal that of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was particularly predictable, after the request of the prosecutor of the military court of Tripoli to suspend the file of the son of the ex-Guide of the revolution in Libya, Mouammar Kadhafi.
By putting pressure on the HNEC, Tripoli has therefore succeeded. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi will indeed not be able to take part in the presidential election scheduled for December 24. Beyond the violence that this could generate, the decision of the HNEC is debated.
Because the electoral body validated 73 candidacies, among which those of several personalities who, according to the electoral law, could not however present themselves. Thus, according to the documents of the HNEC, Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Dbeibah, the head of parliament of Toubrouk, Aguila Salah Issa, the Minister of the Interior, Fathi Bachagha, or the self-proclaimed leader of eastern Libya, Khalifa Haftar, will all be candidates. However, according to the texts, all should have resigned from their functions several weeks ago. In addition, candidatures from women were accepted when the electoral law forbids them to stand.
And while the prosecutor of the military court of Tripoli had asked that the file of Marshal Haftar be also rejected, the latter was finally accepted. So why is Gaddafi deprived of an election, unlike the Marshal of East Libya? The HNEC advances, to justify its decision, articles 10 and 17 of the electoral law, which prohibit the candidacy of persons convicted of "an offense or a crime against honor". Author of numerous crimes, Haftar seems to have fallen through the cracks.
Gaddafi and his clean criminal record
The rejection of the candidacy of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who would have filed an appeal, is surprising. First, because the legal framework for the election was only applied to settle the case of the son of the former Libyan president. Ironically, Aguila Salah, who unilaterally enacted the electoral law, tailor-made for Haftar, himself should have seen his candidacy rejected.
Despite the illegality of some of the 73 cases accepted, it remains to be seen what Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is accused of. The Journal of Africa succeeded in obtaining a copy of the criminal record of the son Gaddafi, which the latter presented when filing his candidacy. A clean criminal record.
How to explain this, when the Libyan justice sentenced Saif al-Islam Gaddafi to death in absentia, while he was a prisoner of the Zenten brigade, of which he is today the official representative?
To understand the reasons, we have to go back to 2017. The government of Tobruk had amnestied Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. And if Haftar can today boast of a very relative innocence in Libya, concerning possible crimes, it is because the Marshal also took advantage of this amnesty. However, for the Marshal, it took a political intervention to clear his criminal record, while for Gaddafi, it is the conclusion of talks started in 2016.
A refusal, and after?
As for the four major candidates, whose candidacies have been validated by the HNEC, should we expect a formidable battle between Dbeibah and Bachagha, on the Tripoli side, and Haftar and Salah, on the eastern side? Libyan? In any case, the publication, by the High National Electoral Commission, of the presidential candidates worries. "The election is one of all dangers, and the rejection of Gaddafi's candidacy risks causing major electoral disturbances," predicted an observer. The resignation of the UN representative Ján Kubiš shows that the United Nations (UN) is losing its foothold in Libya, when it intended to steer the electoral process.
A symbolic resignation, which shows one thing: the international community has become a powerless spectator, where it wanted to play a key role. After having shaken up African diplomacy to ensure the holding of elections on December 24, Ján Kubiš knows that the list published by the HNEC is problematic: if one of the Tripolitan representatives wins the ballot box, Tripoli will ignite; if Haftar wins the election, the result has no chance of being accepted by the Marshal's rivals. An insoluble problem, which caused the resignation of the UN envoy. Libya will, in the days to come, be on its own.