Libya elections.. The number of presidential candidates exceeds 85, and the Commission closes the door for candidacy

The number of candidates in the upcoming presidential elections in Libya, scheduled for next month, has risen to more than 85, and the High Electoral Commission is closing the nomination process today, while the Supreme Council of State said that the election laws issued by the House of Representatives will present the process to a legal challenge to its validity.

The Electoral Commission said that its three branches in Tripoli (west), Benghazi (east) and Sabha (south) review and scrutinize all applications of candidates to ensure that they meet the requirements and controls to run for the presidential elections scheduled for December 25.

The Commission is awaiting the responses of the Public Prosecutor, the Criminal Investigation Department, and the Nationality and Passports Authority regarding the eligibility of the first list of candidates, to ensure that there are no judicial rulings against them, and that they do not hold the nationality of another country without the permission of the competent authorities.

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— High National Elections Commission (HNEC) (@LyHNEC) November 22, 2021

In the event that one of the candidates - which the commission adds on its Twitter account - violates one of the legal requirements, the commission will exclude his candidacy file, contact him or whoever delegated him, and he will be informed of the decision to exclude within 5 days from the date of the end of submitting candidacy applications.

UNHCR clarification

The Electoral Commission clarified, in a statement last Wednesday, that the candidacy applications attached to the documents related to the legal requirements submitted to the commission do not necessarily mean that the candidate's application has been accepted.

It is expected that the commission will publish the preliminary lists of the names of the accepted candidates within 48 hours of announcing the closing of the candidacy door.

The Commission explained the postponement by the increase in the number of candidates for the presidential elections, by the last day within the days specified for submission, and due to the limited time required to complete the scrutiny of applications for candidacy.

After completing the process of checking the eligibility of the candidates, the period for the candidates’ objections is determined in the two days following the date of publishing the preliminary lists, and the Commission considers and decides on the objections within the three days following the end of the period specified for submitting objections.

The most prominent candidates

Among the most prominent candidates are the Prime Minister of the Government of National Unity, Abdel Hamid Dabaiba, retired Major General Khalifa Haftar, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, former Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha, and Parliament Speaker Aguila Saleh.

Also among the candidates is Laila Ben Khalifa, who is the first female presidential candidate in the history of Libya, a civil and human rights activist and an administrative official in the Charters Organization for Human Rights.

The Libyan Military Prosecutor, Masoud Arhouma Miftah, had requested, yesterday evening, Sunday evening, that the procedures for the candidacy of Saif Al-Islam and Haftar for the presidential elections be halted, citing the need for them to appear for investigation of the facts attributed to them, in a case against the two men related to the killing of citizens in the town of Sebeea, south of the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

The Military Prosecutor added that Haftar is also accused in cases related to the killing of 63 migrants in the bombing of the Migrant Reception Center in the city of Tajoura, east of Tripoli, in July 2019.

In a related context, the Supreme Council of State in Libya said that the election laws issued by the Presidency of the House of Representatives are in violation of the constitutional declaration, and that the elections, if they are held, will be subject to a legal challenge to their validity, even by the candidates themselves, and the Council had previously announced its refusal to hold the presidential elections because Incompatibility on electoral laws between him and the House of Representatives.

During a session held today in Tripoli, the Council considered itself in permanent session, and assigned its presidency to form a committee to develop an initiative to get out of the crisis, enhance confidence in the electoral process, and ensure its integrity and transparency.

More than two million and 800 thousand Libyans out of 7 million registered to vote in the presidential elections, and the commission said today that it has distributed more than one and a half million voter cards so far, with 8 days left until the end of the card distribution process.

The presidential elections scheduled for next month are the first to be held by universal suffrage in Libya, and it culminates in a political process supervised by the United Nations to end the political crisis that the country has experienced since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011.