Libya’s electoral committee rejects Gaddafi’s son Saif as presidential candidate
Libya’s electoral commission said on Wednesday that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the former ruler’s son and one of the main candidates in the presidential elections planned for December, was ineligible to run, compounding the confusion surrounding the vote. .
Gaddafi was one of 25 candidates he disqualified in an initial decision pending an appeal process that will ultimately be decided by the judiciary. Some 98 Libyans registered as candidates.
Disputes over electoral rules, including the legal basis for the vote and who should be eligible to run, threaten to derail an internationally backed peace process aimed at ending a decade of factional chaos.
The Tripoli military prosecutor had urged the commission to dismiss Gaddafi following his conviction in absentia for war crimes in 2015 for his involvement in the fight against the revolution that toppled his father Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. He has denied wrongdoing.
Some of the other candidates initially approved by the commission had also been accused of possible rapes by political rivals.
Acting Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah promised not to run for president as a condition of assuming his current position and did not withdraw three months before the vote, as required by a contested electoral law.
Another prominent candidate, the eastern commander Khalifa Haftar, is said to have American nationality, which could also rule him out. Many people in western Libya also accuse him of war crimes committed during his assault on Tripoli in 2019-20.
Haftar denies war crimes and says he is not a US citizen.
Dbeibah has described the electoral rules issued in September by Parliament Speaker Aguila Saleh, who is also a candidate, as “flawed.”
UN envoy to Libya Jan Kubis, who is resigning, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that Libya’s judiciary would make the final decision on the rules and whether the candidates were eligible.
(REUTERS)
