On 14 November 2021 — ten years after the 2011 revolution which overthrew Muammar Qadhafi’s regime — his son and presumed heir apparent, Saif al-Islam Qadhafi, emerged in Sebha to submit his papers to apply to become a presidential candidate. He wore southern Libya’s traditional robes and turban thereby reproducing his late father’s look. He was also deliberately mimicking the garb his father donned during his infamous Bab Al-Aziziya speech in February 2011, when he threatened to exterminate Benghazi’s population for demanding change.

Saif al-Islam had been out of the public eye for much of the previous decade. In November 2011 he was arrested and imprisoned by militias from Zintan shortly after his father’s ignominious death in Sirte. At the time, and to this day, he remains wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to stand trial on accusations of committing war crimes during the 2011 revolution. Despite this, the Zintan militia continued to refuse to turn him over to the authorities in Tripoli or to the ICC. He was sentenced to death in absentia by a Tripoli court in 2015 but it did not have the power to extradite him from Zintan or to carry out the sentence. As political infighting among the post-revolutionary factions consumed Libyans’ attention, Saif al-Islam was quietly released from prison in Zintan in 2017. He was granted full amnesty by Khalifa Haftar and his affiliated unrecognised eastern government in an attempt by the latter to consolidate support from former Qadhafi regime sympathisers. His presidential candidacy was unsurprising because in a July 2021 interview with the New York Times he had hinted that he would run in the election and claimed that this would restore unity to Libya.

Saif al-Islam is still an extremely divisive figure, and many see his potential candidacy for a second time as a serious impediment to the political process. Aside from his dubious domestic legal status he is still wanted by the ICC for alleged crimes against humanity, including attacks against civilians and peaceful protestors during the 2011 revolution. In a 15 November 2022 statement Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the Libyan authorities to arrest and hand him over even if he registers as a presidential candidate.

The effects of his candidacy are most strongly felt in western Libya where the election’s opponents are most prominent. His candidacy exacerbates the region’s anger over the lack of a constitutional framework for the elections and once again increases doubts on the viability of the entire process. With Saif al-Islam’s reappearance on the political scene many western stakeholders — including municipal council members, tribal elders, and military leaders — have called for elections to be boycotted until a constitutional framework is agreed upon.

Numerous revolutionaries and civilians have expressed outrage at Saif al-Islam’s presidential bid. Ironically, he is attempting to exercise his democratic right to run for president against the very system that he once attempted to violently crush during the 2011 revolution. In 2019 it was reported that, during his isolation and the Libyan Arab Armed Forces’ (LAAF) ultimately unsuccessful siege against Tripoli, he was involved in ‘security meetings’ with two Russians election specialists who were later abducted and interrogated in Tripoli. If one is to believe the reports, he was intrigued by the Russians’ ability to manipulate elections which may indicate that he has been planning to join the race for president for a long time and that Moscow is one of his major backers.