Former interior minister Fathi Bashagha, the only Libyan to officially declare his candidacy for president in the December 24 elections, has emphasized “security and economic reform” in his pitch.
The polls will bring an end to a difficult year for the 59-year-old.
He was narrowly defeated in February elections for the position of interim prime minister as part of the UN-led peace process.
That same month, he survived an assassination attempt described by aides as “well-planned” — a hail of bullets fired at his convoy on a highway near Tripoli.
However, Bashagha, a political heavyweight in Libya and a proponent of attempts to incorporate the country’s many militias into the state, is not backing down.
He wants to rehabilitate Libya’s economy by reviving it, he told AFP in an interview in his garden in the Tripoli suburbs.
“Security goes hand in hand with economic reform,” he said.
“There needs to be an urgent plan for economic reform and to strengthen the dinar against the dollar, and the private sector needs to be encouraged.”
The December elections are part of a UN-led attempt to end a decade of bloodshed in the North African nation, coming little over a year after a historic truce between eastern and western camps.
In March, a unity government was sworn in with the authority to lead Libya to presidential and parliamentary elections, a process marred by disagreements about the legal foundation for the voting after years of state fragmentation and collapse.
