Saif al-Islam appeared dressed in the traditional Libyan dress while submitting his candidacy papers at the headquarters of the High Electoral Commission in the southwestern city of Sabha.
Those media quoted the Commission’s Communication and Awareness Department as saying that Saif al-Islam came to the Commission’s branch on Sunday morning, where he handed over the papers required for candidacy.
In his recent appearance with an American media outlet, Saif al-Gaddafi hinted at his intention to run, saying that the scene seemed appropriate for a return, after he “remained in the shadows” for the past period.
It depends on two categories
The Libyan journalist, Al-Hussein Al-Misori, told Sky News Arabia that Saif Al-Islam is counting on two groups, “the first are the supporters of the former Gaddafi regime, and they support him being the son of the late leader, and his election means returning Libya to 2010.”
As for the second category, according to Al-Missouri, “they are frustrated with the conditions they have lived through during the past ten years, and they will vote for him even though they are not inclined to him, because of what the country has suffered from the fragmentation of the past period, which led to the interest groups and the Brotherhood’s access to power and their clinging to it, and wasting resources country”.
But he ruled out Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi’s obtaining support from outside these two groups, suggesting that competitors would gather to fight him.
The Libyan political analyst, Othman Baraka, agrees with the previous view that the Libyans will not elect Saif al-Islam because he is “a unique politician who is able to solve problems, but in the hope of returning to the period of political stability that they lived in immediately before the revolution,” and that they would prefer him over the Muslim Brotherhood who controlled the western region since Years”.
Baraka expected that Saif al-Islam would be able to reach the final stages of the presidential elections, because “in recent years, in which Libya witnessed political chaos, citizens were discontented with the situation and political forces in the country.”
get out of prison
Saif al-Islam was arrested by militias controlling the city of Zintan, western Libya, in 2011, and was referred to trial on charges of killing opponents of his father Muammar Gaddafi during the February events and demonstrations, and was sentenced to death in 2015.
In 2017, he obtained a pardon from Parliament, and was released from prison to hide from media appearances, amid assurances that it was the sheikhs and notables of the city who asked him to live freely without appearing in public life.
Although Libya has not signed the Charter of the International Criminal Court, the court issued a warrant for the arrest of Saif al-Islam since 2011 on the pretext of committing war crimes, in reference to the suppression of the February demonstrations, and he is still wanted.
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