The strong man of the East of the country seeks to conquer power by the polls after the resounding failure of his military adventure of 2019 and 2020.
Le Monde with AFP
Marshal Khalifa Hatar, a loud man of the East Libyan, announced, Tuesday, November 16, be a candidate for the presidential election scheduled for December 24th. “I declare my candidacy (…), not because I run after power, but to lead our people in this crucial period to glory, progress and prosperity,” he said his fief of Benghazi , in a speech broadcast live on television. This candidacy, supported by influential regional actors, such as Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, follows two days that of Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the former dictator Mouammar Gaddafi.
Marshal Haftar, 77, had withdrawn at the end of September – provisionally – from his duties at the head of the self-proclaimed National Libyan army (ANL), as stipulated by the electoral law, to be able to present themselves to the supreme function. The law in question allows him to find his post to the army if he is not elected.
The marshal, accused by his opponents of wanting to establish a military dictatorship, seeks to conquer power by the polls after the resounding failure of his military adventure at the gates of Tripoli, the headquarters of the Government recognized by the United Nations. (UN), in 2019. His troops had been repulsed in June 2020 by the rival forces assisted by Turkey. In October 2020, a ceasefire had been signed and, in March 2021, a government installed under the aegis of the United Nations had been responsible for the transition from here to the legislative and presidential elections of December 24th.
Twenty years of exile
Origin from Cyrenaica (East), Mr. HAFTAR came out of the shadow at the beginning of the 2011 revolt, to which he took part. Four decades earlier, this soldier, formed in the Soviet Union, had joined the 1969 military coup who had overthrown the monarchy of Senoussi and Kadhafi went to power. He participates in the Chado-Libyan war (1978-1987) but is taken prisoner. The guide says that the general is not part of his army.
Americans manage to release it during an operation that remains an enigma and give it political asylum. In the United States, he joins Libyan opposition. After more than twenty years of exile, Mr. HAFTAR returns in March 2011 to Benghazi. Shortly after the fall of Gaddafi, killed in October 2011, about 150 officers and non-commissioned officers proclaim him Chief of Staff, an ever formalized appointment.
The constitution of a paramilitary force, the anlin – renamed later “Libyan Arab Armed Forces” -, made him the strong man of the cyrenaic and a key player in the crisis. He then dropped by some powerful tribes that he had rallied to his cause, and by some of his foreign support, Mr. Haftar had been discreet as the political path took over the military option.
Since the fall of the Gaddafi regime, the oil country is in the grip of bloody violence and struggles between rival powers in the east and west of the country. In his speech, Tuesday, Mr. HAFTAR stated that the December election was “the only way to get the Libya out of chaos”.