After attempting to seize power with cannon fire, Marshal Khalifa Haftar officially embarked on the path of democracy in Libya.

Unsurprisingly, the man who is nicknamed "the strong man of the East" announced Tuesday, November 16, his presidential candidacy scheduled for December 24.

"I declare my candidacy for the presidential election, not because I am running after power but to lead our people in this crucial period towards glory, progress and prosperity", launched the marshal in a speech broadcast live from Benghazi.

At 77, Khalifa Haftar thus maintains his dream of playing the role of the “savior” of Libya, which had pushed him to lead, in April 2019, an offensive to seize Tripoli.

In vain.

Trained as an ex-USS and "returned" by the United States

Nothing predestined this former officer of the Libyan army, trained at the military academy of Benghazi then in the former USSR, to launch an assault on the ballot boxes.

Until now, Khalifa Haftar has always lived as a soldier.

A soldier who took part in the military coup of 1969, which overthrew the Senoussi monarchy and installed… Muammar Kadhafi in Tripoli.

Appointed a cadre of the Libyan army as a reward for his feats of arms, the young general engages a decade later in the war between Libya and Chad, from 1978 to 1987. But, captured with all of his unit during the battle of Ouadi-Doum in 1987, he was released by the very versatile Colonel Gaddafi.

This betrayal convinces Khalifa Haftar to defect and throw himself into the arms of the United States, which wants to put an end to the regime of Muammar Gadhafi, the "mad dog of the Middle East", in the words of President Ronald Reagan.

Released from prison and "returned" by the American services, Khalifa Haftar is placed at the head of a force which bears his name, based in Chad.

Made up of some 2,000 Libyans, the group's mission was to march on Tripoli.

But the Haftar force abandoned its projects in 1990, when Idriss Déby came to power in N'Djamena.

Revenge against Gaddafi

After this failure, the general went into exile in the United States, where he joined the Libyan opposition movement abroad.

He settled in Langley, Virginia, near the CIA headquarters, where he was trained militarily.

His destiny changed in 2011, at the same time as that of his country.

While the Libyan population, encouraged by the so-called Arab Spring revolts, rose up against the Gaddafi regime, Khalifa Haftar decided to return to Libya, precisely to Benghazi, the big city in the East and the epicenter of the dispute.

It is inconceivable to pass up a chance to take revenge on Colonel Gaddafi.

Khalifa Haftar put on his uniform and was quickly appointed to head the land forces by the National Transitional Council (CNT), the political arm of the rebellion.

While he is perceived in Libya as too closely linked to the US administration, the transitional authorities do not fully trust him, seeing him as a vengeful military man and an ambitious man with authoritarian leanings.

However, he can count on the unwavering support of former regime soldiers who have defected.

Checked at the gates of Tripoli

While Libya is gradually sinking into chaos and anarchy, the country is talking about post-Gaddafi, in two rival camps facing each other.

On the one hand, in Tripoli, the government of national unity (GNA), led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj and recognized by the international community, and on the other, a parallel government and parliament installed in the East, in Tobruk.

Presenting himself as head of the self-proclaimed "Libyan National Army" (ANL), Khalifa Haftar tries to play his personal card by seeking to appear in the eyes of Westerners and his country's direct neighbors as the only guarantee of stability and the only bulwark against jihadist terrorism in the region.

A speech which finds attentive ears abroad, in particular in Paris, Moscow or Cairo, and even in Washington.

The strategy of the one who became a marshal is paying off at first: long at the initiative on the military level, Khalifa Haftar claims to control 80% of the country at the beginning of 2019, when the ANL, which holds Benghazi and the Cyrenaica, is more powerful than ever.

An operation aimed at eliminating "terrorist and criminal groups" in the south-west of the country enabled it to conquer, in mid-January, a vast border region with Algeria, Niger, Chad and Sudan.

At the time, French diplomacy hailed the operations of the ANL "which made it possible to eliminate important terrorist targets".

During the month of June 2018, the ANL has already announced the take of "total control" of a region dubbed the "Oil Crescent" in the northeast, where Libyan oil is transported abroad.

The Marshal's troops also seized, during the same month, Derna, stronghold of radical Islamists and the only city in the eastern region that was beyond their control.

Only Tripoli still resists him and rejects his requests for the dissolution of Parliament and the formation of a presidential committee to lead Libya pending the holding of new elections.

Intoxicated by his victories and supported by his foreign allies such as Egypt, Russia and the United Arab Emirates, the Marshal launched an assault on the capital on April 4, 2019.

But its troops were pushed back after several months of bloody fighting in June 2020 by troops loyal to the GNA, actively supported militarily by Turkey.

The series of setbacks by the ANL which resulted in the loss of control of the whole of western Libya was the failure of the Marshal's offensive against Tripoli and that of the military solution to the conflict in Libya.

A controversial marshal

This failure, which sent the Marshal back to his barracks, was followed by the signing of a ceasefire in October 2020 and, above all, the installation in March 2021, under the aegis of the UN, a government responsible for leading the transition by the December elections.

After having been the dominant force in Libya, then a time offside, Khalifa Haftar will have to try to convince the Libyans that he is indeed the man for the job.

And this, even as it is vigorously rejected by a large majority of the population in western and southern Libya and its military campaign, marred by accusations of war crimes, has tarnished its image - not only inside the country.

To begin this change and be able to run for president, the marshal had provisionally withdrawn, on September 22, from his functions at the head of the ANL, as stipulated in the electoral law.

An electoral law that was not passed by Parliament, but directly ratified by its leader, Aguila Saleh, who is close to the candidate Haftar.

The text is also criticized by his detractors as tailor-made for him, because it allows him to be a presidential candidate and to be able to regain his military post if he was not elected.

"The next election is now a way to recycle the old system instead of establishing a consensual transition. After the failure of the military option, Marshal Haftar is in the race to succeed Colonel" Gaddafi, commented on Twitter Hasni Abidi, Director of the Center for Studies and Research on the Arab and Mediterranean World in Geneva.

Ironically, Khalifa Haftar will have to fight in this election with another Gaddafi who could block his path to power.

This is Seif al-Islam, the son of the former dictator, also a presidential candidate on December 24, while he is wanted by the International Criminal Court for "crimes against humanity".

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