TRIPOLI – Yet another twist in the race towards the elections in Libya. The premier of the National Unity Government of Libya, Abdulhamid Dbeibah, officially enters the competition for the presidential elections scheduled for December 24, the day of the 70th anniversary of the independence of the North African country. The Tripoli Court of Appeal today accepted the appeal presented by a pool of lawyers of the Misrata entrepreneur and head of the executive, thus overturning the previous verdict that excluded Dbeibah from the vote, the main favorite for the election as head of the State.
Indeed, on November 28, the Court of First Instance accepted one of the appeals filed against the premier by other candidates in Tripolitania (such as the former interior minister, Fathi Bashagha). The initial exclusion was based on the fact that Dbeibah also possesses nationality, in violation of the second condition (the future president “must not have a passport from another country”) of the presidential election law issued by the Tobruk parliament. Furthermore, as the Nova agency recalls, the premier had pledged in writing not to compete in the elections when he was nominated by the “Libyan political dialogue forum” in Geneva last February.
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On November 18, the entrepreneur from the “city-state” of Misurata, the seat of the militias considered to be the strongest in the country, had filed his candidacy at the headquarters of the High Electoral Commission (Hnec) in the capital, Tripoli. This is despite article 12 of the controversial Tobruk presidential law, in theory, precluding anyone who held public office three months before December 24 from running for elections. On November 25, the Tripoli Court of Appeal had rejected the appeals filed against the candidacy of the premier and minister of defense “ad interim” based precisely on article 12, considered discriminatory.
Graduated in engineering in Canada, Dbeibah worked closely with Saif al Islam Gaddafi in 2007. “But this is my only link with the former regime”, he assured in an interview dating back to 2018, in which he introduced himself as an “alternative” to the then Prime Minister of Tripoli Fayez al Serraj and to General Haftar.
Meanwhile, today the court of first instance in Zawiya, an important coastal city in western Libya, announced that it had accepted an appeal filed against the candidacy of General Khalifa Haftar in the presidential elections. However, this is a political announcement because Zawiya is not competent in the matter. The Superior Council of the Judiciary has in fact ordered that appeals against candidates in presidential elections be presented in the same district in which the same candidates registered.
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Haftar filed the appeal in Benghazi, which makes any appeal outside the capital of Cyrenaica unacceptable. On the other hand, the head of the “Foundation for Democracy and Human Rights of Libya”, Emadeddin al Muntasser, said that General Haftar would be a US citizen as ratified by the Federal Court of Virginia: which would make the general ineligible under the rules which require not to have dual citizenship.
On 25 November, the Misrata military court ordered the death sentence against Khalifa Haftar and six other soldiers of the self-proclaimed “Libyan National Army”, in a sentence handed down in absentia which – in theory – could exclude Haftar.
For their part, Libyan Interior Minister Khaled Mazen and Justice Minister Halima Al Busaifi have expressed deep concern over the growing security breaches since the start of the electoral process. The two said, in a joint press conference, that they have “received a series of complaints from various parties that undermine the integrity of the electoral process and its procedures and hinder their security”. Mazen and Al Bousefi explained that the situation is no longer acceptable, especially after what happened at the Sebha Court, unable to receive electoral appeals after the “block” implemented by some militias close to General Haftar.
The two ministers of the Tripoli government warned that the continuing violations “threaten the electoral process on schedule”. Sebha is important because it is the city where Saif al Islam Gaddafi, son of the late Libyan leader currently out of the electoral race, should appeal against the exclusion of the presidential election.
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