Saif Gaddafi: “Anyone Should Be Free To Run”

Anyone should be able to feel free to be able to participate in the 2023 elections, under penalty of disregarding their result. She said it Saif al Islam Gaddafi, son of the late Libyan rais Mohammed, in an official statement released today by his staff to local media.

“Everyone must be allowed to stand as candidates in the elections”, Gaddafi said, recalling the importance of the participation “of all candidates” given the “crucial phase and the “exceptional circumstances” that the country is going through.

“Excluding some parties can lead to contesting the results” of the vote, to “not recognizing it” or ultimately to invalidating the electoral appointment.

The same people who have decided to “exclude specific people” (Gaddafi himself) from the electoral contest are now discussing the validity or otherwise of candidacies “for people with dual passports or from military ranks”, said  Saif al Islam in reference to the General Khalifa Haftar.

During his father Muammar’s regime he was working to start a liberalization of the Libyan economy. Before the fall of the regime in 2011, Saif al Islam was considered the modern face of Libya.

Saif al Islam is still wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity.

In November 2021 Saif al Islam Gaddafi had personally presented his candidacy in the Libyan presidential elections (which are no longer held) in the city of Sebha, in the southern region of Fezzan.

It was Saif al Islam Gaddafi’s first (and only) public appearance since 2011.

The son of the late Libyan rais is now 50 years old, speaks fluent English and boasts a doctorate from the London School of Economics.

In 2015, Saif al Islam Gaddafi was sentenced to death, only to be released in 2017 and has since lived in hiding in the northwestern city of Zintan.

 

 

Arab Observer