Libya’s Election Authority Did Not Reject Gadhafi’s Candidacy to Run for President
The Claim
Libya's election authority has rejected Saif al-Islam Ghaddafi’s candidacy to run for president.
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Emerging story
For the past two days, reports have circulated online claiming that Ghaddafi's presidential candidacy has been rejected. According to reports, Libya's High National Election Commission decided to reject Ghaddafi's candidacy in order to avoid the instability caused by protests against his candidacy. The alleged rejection decision was delivered in a statement posted on the Facebook page of the High National Election Commission. The alleged statement came as follows:
"Given the eroding stability and the closure of a number of branches of the commission caused by the candidacy of the so-called Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the commission decided to reject the candidacy of Saif al-Islam Ghaddafi for the next presidential elections."
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar's investigation revealed that the statement attributed to Libya's High National Election Commission was published on the organization's official Facebook page but quickly deleted. The commission issued a statement on its official Facebook page on Monday, November 16th, stating that the page was hacked for a few minutes.
The commission went on to say that the technicians were able to resolve the issue and remove all of the fake news that had been published on the page. In fact, the only post that was removed claimed that Ghaddafi's candidacy for the next presidential elections had been rejected.
Sputnik News, one of the first outlets to report the claim, updated the story to include the commission's response to the alleged rejection statement.
On November 14, 2021, Saif Al-Islam Ghaddafi, the son of former Libyan President Muammar Ghaddafi, announced his presidential candidacy. On Sunday, Saif Ghaddafi appeared in public for the first time in nearly a decade to register as a presidential candidate for the December election.
The decision sparked a wave of unrest in Libya, with people protesting and closing branches of the electoral commission, rejecting Ghaddafi's candidacy. The younger Ghaddafi's participation influenced the demonstrations in the civil war that resulted in Muammar Ghaddafi's death in 2011, ending his decades of rule. Saif Gaddafi was charged with war crimes during the 2011 conflict, but his adversaries imprisoned him and did not appear publicly until recently.
The situation in Libya has worsened since Khalifa Haftar declared his candidacy for president last Tuesday. Despite waves of criticism and instability caused by Gaddafi and Haftar's candidacy, Libya's Electoral Commission did not announce their rejection.
As a result, Misbar's investigation concludes that the claim that Libyan electoral authorities rejected Gaddafi's candidacy is misleading.
