Despite facing two counts of crimes against humanity, murder and persecution at the International Criminal Court (ICC), allegedly committed in 2011 in Libya, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the fugitive son of the late ruler, Muammar Gaddafi, can stand as a presidential candidate in this month’s elections.
A court in the southern province of Sabha finally ruled in favour of Saif Gaddafi, having failed to convene for almost a week after the building was surrounded by armed men who did not let judges come inside. Earlier, Libya’s High National Elections Commissions had determined that he was ineligible to run.
In 2015, a domestic Libyan court found him guilty and sentenced him to death in absentia for war crimes committed during the violent uprising against his father. His candidacy follows six years of being held by tribal militias and his defiance of an ICC arrest warrant.
His run can become a destabilizing factor in case of being supported by voters.
However, along with risks of rising of new tensions between confronting tribes since ousting Libyan dictator, a Libyan political body called for the December, 24 presidential election to postpone for February amid growing jostling over the rules and legal basis of a vote.Thus, the disputes over the current election process could trigger a crisis similar to the one surrounding the 2014 vote when Libya was split into warring eastern and western factions with parallel administrations in Tripoli and Benghazi.
Instead of conducting both the presidential and parliamentary elections on Dec. 24 as was stipulated in the U.N.’s roadmap, Saleh’s voting law said the parliamentary vote would take place at a later date along with a second round of the presidential vote.
There is still no national leader capable enough to unite Libyans. Any delay of voting day could worsen the situation in the country, lead to destabilization and escalate tensions.
Some Libyans, including powerful figures in the east, want to prevent the candidacy of Abdulhamid Dbeibah, who vowed he would not stand for election when he was appointed as interim prime minister.
Saleh’s law said candidates who were already holding office must temporarily step down three months before the election. Both Saleh and Haftar have done the same. Dbeibah has not.
The audacious move by the younger Gaddafi to ballot reminds Uhuru Kenyatta’s case at the ICC. He bid for the Kenyan presidency in 2013 while charged by the international court with five counts of crimes against humanity, following the post-election violence that ripped Kenya apart in 2007/8. The charges were subsequently withdrawn in 2015.
This year in August prosecutors in Libya issued an arrest warrant for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, on suspicion of Russian mercenaries connection.
For the first time Russian fighters appeared in Libya in 2019 when they joined the forces of a rebel general, Khalifa Haftar, in attacking the UN-backed government in the capital Tripoli.
According to Libyan intelligence officials, Gaddafi has strong links with Moscow and he is Russia’s favourite candidate as Libyan ruler.
Maxim Shugaley, a veteran Saint Petersburg elections consultant, who was arrested in Tripoli in May 2019 on charges of espionage and performing activities for Yevgeny Prigozhin, personally met Gaddafi during his stay in Libya. Moreover, Russia has made two films on Mr.Shugaley’s arrest, which have been shared on YouTube. They portrayed Gaddafi as “the saviour of Libya” and Mr.Shugaley as a “Russian hero”. A Libyan intelligence officer told the BBC, ‘If Russia had its way, we would have had Saif al-Islam Gaddafi giving his triumphant speech in Tripoli’s famous Martyrs’ Square’.
Saif Al-Islam wanted them to send a message to Moscow that he had compromising material on Western politicians showing they had received campaign contributions from his family. He proposed to think altogether on ‘proper use of this information’.
Saif al-Islam, was implicitly endorsed by his father to succeed him one day and once viewed as a reformer able to democratize and liberalize Libya. In the major part of Tripolitania, the Gaddafi clan, Saif al-Islam in particular, is still popular among nostalgics and former regime officials, and the clans that remained loyal to the former dictator’s family. Pro-Gaddafi sentiment also lingers among a part of the population who were disappointed by the permanent instability and violence that has roiled the country over the past decade.
In recent years, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi’s standing has only increased in certain communities, especially, for economic, security or political reasons, which arouse much more nostalgia for the Gaddafi years than in the early years after the fall of the regime, when no one was talking about the clan return to power.
In March 2018, as if to test opinion, the Libyan Popular Front, a party openly demonstrating its pro-Gaddafi leanings, announced from Tunis that the son of “Africa’s king of kings” would be running for president.
Despite the active support of warlord Khalifa Haftar, the Russians do not see any sense to continue supporting him as a potential leader of Libya.
It is unlikely that elections in Libya will unite population, which is fragmented along the lines of tribal and clan affiliation. In this regard, it is highly likely that, based on the voting results, some influential candidates with the support of armed groups will try to destabilize the situation in order to go back on a vote.
Saif al-Islam is interesting to Moscow because his victory will reincarnate Muammar Gaddafi regime and demonstrate public support for the ousted dictator. It is high time for the Kremlin to show that Gaddafi was overthrown because of foreign interference.
Moscow has a horror of revolutions and popular protests. The Kremlin seeks to deny the ability of the people to overthrow authoritarian regimes on their own. Therefore, any public will manifestation leading to power change is shown by Russian propaganda as a result of foreign intervention.
Therefore, Gaddafi’s son rise to power is seen by the Kremlin as an opportunity to show the destructiveness of popular unrest on one hand, and the countries’ seek for democracy as the imposition of Western politics on the other hand.
Thus, Saif al-Islam’s victory in the elections is an argument for the Kremlin’s ideological confrontation both with the United States and the whole democratic world conflicting with the Russian idea to restore the Soviet Union.
Saif al-Islam’s presidential run creates a dangerous precedent when individuals accused of crimes against humanity can come to power and avoid punishment.
While Haftar and Gaddafi might be the most prominent names in the race Parliamentary Speaker Aguila Saleh is the most likely consensus candidate. He is well-known enough due to his current position.
A successful election and significant steps into the right direction remain incredibly challenging, especially, amid absence of genuine peace-building and trust-building processes, and periods of reconciliation – all the mechanisms one would expect from a post-conflict society. The main conditions of them are the following:
- Will the majority of the key stakeholders accept the results,
- Will there be acquiescence to the leadership of whoever ‘wins’ by those who ‘lose’?
