It will be a hectic summer in Libya. The appointment of December 24 for the presidential and parliamentary elections seems far away, but everything is moving in that direction, amid a thousand difficulties, first of all the lack of an electoral law on which is still being negotiated.
In the last few hours, news reports directly to the battle between the various candidates and political groups in the country: the Libyan Military Prosecutor has issued an arrest warrant for Saif al Islam Gheddafi, the son of the colonel who since the revolution of 2011 was first under arrest in Zintan and then was effectively released by the militia that held him in custody. Saif two weeks ago gave a long interview to the New York Times, the first since he was captured by Zintan militiamen in the south of the country in November 2011.
Saif, who still has a strong following in Libya, openly said he was ready to return: “I have been away from the Libyan people for ten years. I have to come back slowly, slowly like in a striptease …”. He was the designated heir of Colonel Gaddafi: legally he is still wanted by the International Criminal Court, but in Libya he is now considered the expression of a still relevant tribal and political group, perfectly capable of running in the elections.
Gaddafi’s son appears surprisingly: “I’ll be back in politics”
by Vincenzo Nigro
“The men who were my guards are now my friends,” said Saif al Times, adding that he believes that his political movement could help regain the lost unity of the country: “They raped Libya, it is on its knees, there is no money, no security. There is no life here. Go to the gas station : there is no diesel, there is no petrol. We export oil and gas to Italy and here we have blackouts. It is more than a failure. It is a total disaster “. A “populist” message, against the disorder brought about by the revolution, which has a strong hold in Libya, a country that 10 years after the overthrow of the Colonel is experiencing a dramatic political, economic and health crisis.
Many observers of Libyan affairs believe that the move by the Libyan Military Prosecutor was dictated by the political ambitions that more than any other fear a Gaddafi’s return to politics. According to a source, the military prosecutor is close to the “Nawasi” brigade, one of the formations that in recent years has taken control of Tripoli. While the “civil” attorney general in recent months had opened an investigation into Saif not finding any charges that could be prosecuted in court.
Libya, “the war of the children of”: major maneuvers to nominate Saif el Islam Gaddafi. The wrath of Haftar junior
by Vincenzo Nigro
However, many other political leaders fear Saif al Islam: the first are the leaders of Cyrenaica close to General Khalifa Haftar (who would like to nominate his son Saddam) and to the Speaker of the House of Representatives Aguila Saleh. The latter made it clear that “the accused at the International Criminal Court cannot run for president”. But, in fact, he referred to the open procedure for crimes against humanity at the UN Tribunal, while at the moment there were no proceedings in a Libyan court.
In the East the Gaddafi have remained very strong, both because the Qaddafiya tribe is very present from Sirte to Benghazi, but also because politically that region believes it has undergone a revolution that was led by militias and political leaders from Tripoli and Misurata . For this reason, characters like Haftar and Saleh fear the rivalry of Saif Gaddafi, capable of fishing in their own pool of consensus.
The son of the former Libyan leader had built a very welcome political profile even in the West. Saif received a Masters in Political Science from the London School of Economics in 2008. His father had put him in charge of a series of international mediations in which he was appreciated as a reliable and credible negotiator.
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