Region

RABAT — Moroccans began voting Wednesday in parliamentary and local elections that will decide the fate of Islamists who have governed the kingdom since the Arab Spring uprisings.

The vote comes as the tourism-dependent economy is making a patchy recovery from a pandemic-induced 7 per cent contraction in real GDP last year.

Polling stations opened at 8:00am local time (07:00 GMT) and will close at 7:00pm (18:00 GMT). Preliminary results are expected this evening.

Eighteen million voters are on the electoral roll, and citizens will vote for 395 national lawmakers, alongside more than 31,000 local and regional officials.

King Mohammed VI will name a prime minister from the party that leads the parliamentary poll to govern the nation of 36 million for the next five years.

Swept to power in the wake of the 2011 uprisings around the Middle East and North Africa, the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) hopes to secure a third term leading a ruling coalition.

Compared with demands back then for an end to “corruption and despotism”, this year’s two-week election campaign was less lively, with no large gatherings due to the coronavirus.

In the final days, however, PJD and its close rival the National Rally of Independents (RNI) have exchanged heftier blows.

 ‘Above suspicion’ 

Former prime minister and PJD leader Abdelilah Benkirane attacked the RNI boss, billionaire businessman and Agriculture Minister Aziz Akhannouch, in a fiery Facebook video on Sunday.

“The head of government must be a political personality with integrity who is above suspicion,” he said.

Akhannouch, who is said to be close to the royal palace, retorted in an interview on Monday that the attacks were “an admission of failure” by his opponents, vowing not to respond.

Following the last elections in 2016, the RNI leader secured critical ministerial jobs for his party, including the economy and finance and industry portfolios.

Besides the PJD and RNI, the liberal Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), formed by an influential royal adviser, and the centre-right Istiqlal Party are both seen as front-runners in local media.

The election campaign has been marked by PAM’s allegations that RNI was buying votes — denied by Akhannouch’s party — while PJD blasted excessive political spending without naming names.

The tepid campaign has frustrated some voters and expectations for turnout are low.

Whatever the result, political parties are expected to adopt a charter for a “new model of development” with a “new generation of reforms and projects” in the coming years, the king announced recently.

All parties are expected to sign up, regardless of who wins the election.

The plan’s major aims include reducing the country’s wealth gap and doubling per-capita economic output by 2035.

BAGHDAD — The European Union and United Nations will deploy observers to monitor Iraq's parliamentary election next month, saying Tuesday they hope voting will not be tainted by fraud and abstention.

"Our purpose is to do whatever we can in order that the electoral process be as good as possible," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told a news conference in Baghdad.

He said the EU observer mission for the October 10 election would be in Iraq a month before polling day and would stay for another month afterwards.

The UN's top representative in Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, told a separate news conference the world body would also deploy a large monitoring team.

"In fact this is one of the UN's largest electoral assistance projects worldwide with five times as many UN personnel as in 2018," she said.

Hennis-Plasschaert urged Iraqis not to boycott the vote, which she hoped would be "credible", and called on "political forces and candidates to collectively refrain from any attempt to force or distort election resources".

Past elections in Iraq have been marred by violence and vote-buying.

In the most recent legislative election in 2018, the turnout was 44.52 per cent, an official figure that many believe was inflated.

Calls to boycott the vote have increased as the election draws closer, especially among young people who accuse political parties in Iraq of covering up and even encouraging political violence.

Borrell said that everyone in the country demands elections, “but when we organise elections, the people say that elections are not good”.

“Our focus is try to help the electoral process be as good as possible,” he said.

Iraqi political scientist Saleh Al Alaoui told AFP to expect a low turnout — “not exceeding 20 per cent”.

He said this would be “a consequence” of the protests that swept Iraq in October 2019 against corruption, foreign interference, poor public services and the stranglehold the main political parties have on the country.

An early general election was one of the promises made by Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhemi to try to meet the demands of the demonstrators.

A new electoral law also came into force last year, its aim being to break the monopoly held by blocs of parties that share power, and promote independent candidates instead.

ADDIS ABABA — The UN on Tuesday denied claims that Tigrayan rebels were holing up in refugee camps in Sudan after Ethiopian officials said fighters had been caught with refugee ID cards.

Tens of thousands of refugees have streamed across the border into Sudan since war broke out 10 months ago in Ethiopia's northernmost Tigray region, exacerbating tensions between the two Horn of Africa neighbours.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into Tigray to topple the regional ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, saying the move came in response to TPLF attacks on army camps.

Although the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner vowed a swift victory, the war has dragged on and spread into the neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions.

In recent days, Ethiopian officials have said TPLF fighters recently crossed from Sudan to Ethiopia carrying IDs issued by the UN refugee agency UNHCR.

"The TPLF has tried to expand the conflict by entering Benishangul Gumuz and Amhara regions crossing the long Sudanese border," Ethiopia's foreign ministry said late Monday.

"All of its attempts in these areas have proven futile but new evidence has come to the surface. Some TPLF soldiers infiltrating from the Sudanese side have been captured carrying UNHCR ID cards."

A UN official told AFP Tuesday that UNHCR was aware of reports alleging Ethiopian refugees registered in Sudan were now involved in the conflict but said the agency was "not in a position to verify" them.

"Since the onset of the refuge influx, measures were put in place at border entry points and all identified armed elements seeking refuge have been disarmed and separated from the civilian population," the official said.

"Allegations of military training taking place at the refugee camps are unfounded."

The official said UNHCR was working to maintain "the civilian and humanitarian character of asylum" but it was not the agency's role to determine whether those returning home had participated in any fighting.

Relations between Khartoum and Addis Ababa are frosty, with the two countries at odds over the Tigray conflict, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile and Ethiopian farmers’ use of a fertile border region claimed by Sudan.

Meanwhile Abiy’s government and the TPLF continue to trade blame over the alarming humanitarian situation in northern Ethiopia.

The UN says the fighting in Tigray has pushed 400,000 people into famine-like conditions.

Tigrayan leaders said late Monday that 150 people died of starvation in August and warned that one million “are at risk of fatal famine if they are prohibited from receiving life-saving aid within the next few days”, though those figures could not be independently verified.

At least eight starvation deaths were confirmed by members of an Abiy-appointed interim government that attempted to administer the region before being forced out by the rebels in late June.

The TPLF has accused Abiy’s government of imposing an aid blockade since then, and the UN, the African Union and world powers like the United States have repeatedly called for expanded humanitarian access.

At a press briefing Monday however, Ethiopia’s peace minister Muferiat Kamil reiterated the government’s position that the TPLF is to blame for obstructing aid deliveries.

“It’s TPLF who is choking the checkpoints, the humanitarian corridor, it’s not us,” she said.

The World Food Programme (WFP) on Tuesday hailed the recent arrival of more than 100 trucks carrying food and other aid, the first such convoy to arrive in two weeks.

“But much more is needed and this momentum must be sustained, otherwise we cannot hope to deliver enough food to save millions from falling deeper into hunger,” WFP East Africa Director Michael Dunford said in a statement on Tuesday.

ALGIERS — Algerian police said on Monday that they had arrested 27 people suspected of belonging to a separatist group that Algiers considers a “terrorist” organisation.

The individuals were arrested over the previous 48 hours in a case involving “undermining national unity, harming public order and inciting a gathering”, on suspicion of belonging to the Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylie (MAK), authorities said in a statement.

It said 25 people were arrested in Kherrata, which last week saw clashes between protesters and police after a march in support of prisoners of conscience was banned.

The statement said security forces were wounded during the clashes in the town, which is located in the traditionally restive northeastern Kabylie region.

Two other people were arrested in an area around 60 kilometres  away, according to the statement.

Items including “military clothing, bladed weapons” and MAK material were found in the individuals’ homes, it added.

The suspects were trying to “sow strife and fear among citizens and reactivate sleeper cells of this terrorist organisation, on the order of foreign parties”, the statement said.

Algeria’s Human Rights League (LADDH) on Sunday had called for the release of more than 20 people who it said had been arrested.

Separately, the LADDH said that authorities had arrested “journalist and human rights defender Hassan Bouras” on Monday and searched his home in north-western El Bayadh.

It said it did not know the reason for Bouras’s arrest.

Bouras, who is also a LADDH member, had been sentenced to a year in prison in 2016 for “insulting a judge, a public forces member and a government body”.

Rights group Amnesty International at the time called Bouras a “prisoner of conscience” and said he had been sentenced “for a video denouncing corruption of local officials in the city of El Bayadh”.

According to prisoners’ rights group CNLD, around 200 people are in jail in connection with the Hirak pro-democracy protest movement that has shaken the country sporadically since 2019, or over individual freedoms.

Kherrata is seen as the cradle of the protests.

DOHA — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Doha on Monday for crisis talks with the Qataris after the Taliban claimed to have full control over Afghanistan.

Shortly before landing, an official disclosed that four Americans had left Afghanistan with Taliban knowledge, in the first departures arranged by Washington since its chaotic military pullout.

The four US citizens left by land and were greeted by US diplomats, said the senior official, without specifying to which country they crossed, adding that "the Taliban did not impede them".

Blinken, accompanied by Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, is the most senior US official to visit the region since the Taliban's lightning takeover of Afghanistan on August 15.

He was not due to meet any of the Taliban's Doha representatives but State Department official Dean Thompson said Washington would continue to engage with the Islamist group "to ensure our messaging with them is clear".

"We are thankful for Qatar's close collaboration on Afghanistan," the State Department said ahead of Blinken's arrival in Doha at 1500 GMT, seen by an AFP correspondent.

Blinken's team praised Doha's "indispensable support in facilitating the transit of US citizens, embassy Kabul personnel, at-risk Afghans, and other evacuees from Afghanistan through Qatar".

Qatar, which hosts a major US airbase, has been the gateway for 55,000 people airlifted out of Afghanistan, nearly half the total number evacuated by US-led forces after the Taliban's lightning takeover.

Before his arrival, Blinken said that in Qatar he would "express our deep gratitude for all that they're doing to support the evacuation effort" and meet rescued Afghans.

He will also meet US diplomats, after Washington relocated its embassy in Kabul to Doha, along with a number of allies including Britain and The Netherlands.

The State Department said Blinken would discuss with Qatar its efforts, alongside Turkey, to reopen Kabul's ramshackle airport — essential to fly in badly needed humanitarian aid and to evacuate remaining Afghans.

Qatar invited the Taliban to open a political office in Doha in 2013, subsequently hosting talks between Washington and the Taliban that concluded in 2020 with a troop withdrawal agreement. It was followed by direct negotiations between the former insurgents and Afghan government.

Retribution fears 

The Taliban on Monday claimed total control over Afghanistan, saying they had won the key battle for the Panjshir Valley, the last remaining holdout of resistance against their rule.

The group is yet to finalise its new regime after rolling into the capital Kabul three weeks ago at a speed that analysts say likely surprised even the hardline Islamists themselves.

After Doha, Blinken will head on Wednesday to the US air base at Ramstein in Germany, a temporary home for thousands of Afghans moving to the United States.

US officials say some Americans may have left Afghanistan since the United States ended its 20-year war at the end of August but they would have done so by private means.

Washington is closely watching whether the Taliban makes good on promises to let US citizens and allies depart as it decides how to deal with the Islamists.

US officials say just over 100 Americans, mostly dual nationals, remain in Afghanistan after the massive airlift of tens of thousands of people in the last days of America's longest war.

President Joe Biden's Republican rivals have been quick to accuse him of abandoning Americans.

But tens of thousands of interpreters or others who supported the US mission and their family members are believed to remain, with many fearing retribution despite Taliban assurances.

With the Kabul airport in disarray, land routes are the key way out of Afghanistan, primarily though Pakistan or Iran, which does not have diplomatic relations with Washington.

While at Ramstein, Blinken will hold a virtual 20-nation ministerial meeting on the crisis alongside German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.

TRIPOLI — Saadi Qadhafi, a son of Libya’s late dictator Muammar Qadhafi who was overthrown and killed in a 2011 uprising, has been freed from jail, said the interim government.

Saadi — the strongman’s third son, now aged 47 — was known for his playboy lifestyle and briefly played as a professional footballer in Italy.

“Saadi Muammar Qadhafi has been freed from prison,” following on from a court ruling several years ago, a justice ministry source said late Sunday in comments confirmed by the Government of National Unity.

Several media reports suggested Qadhafi had already taken a flight to Turkey. The Turkish foreign ministry, however, told AFP on Monday it had no information about Qadhafi’s possible arrival in Istanbul.

Libya’s Presidential Council on Monday also announced the release of several other prisoners, including Qadhafi’s former Cabinet and intelligence chief, Ahmad Ramadan, who was nicknamed “Black Box” for being the keeper of the dictator’s secrets.

Saadi fled to Niger following the 2011 NATO-backed uprising, but was extradited to Libya in 2014.

He was held in a Tripoli prison, accused of crimes committed against protesters and of the 2005 killing of Libyan football coach Bashir Al Rayani.

In April 2018, the court of appeal acquitted him of Rayani’s murder.

Since the 2011 uprising, Libya has sunk into chaos, with an array of rulers and militias vying for power.

A 2020 ceasefire ended the factional fighting and paved the way for peace talks and the formation of a transitional government this March, ahead of elections set for December.

But preparations are marred by disputes over when to hold elections, what elections to hold and on what constitutional grounds.

The Qadhafi reign 

Saadi was the third son of the flamboyant colonel who took power after a bloodless coup in 1969.

For 42 years, the self-styled “Leader of the Revolution” ruled his “Jamahiriya”, or “state of the masses” with an iron grip, though not necessarily a coherent direction.

The economy was hamstrung by the capricious leader’s whims — and he was accused of using the country’s oil wealth to fund and arm rebel groups across Africa and beyond.

As he concentrated power in an ever-smaller, more nepotistic circle, he destroyed any institutions — military or political — that might challenge him.

Meanwhile, his family lived a life of opulence, with private jets, luxury sports cars and a superyacht.

On October 20, 2011, rebels stormed Muammar Qadhafi’s Mediterranean home town of Sirte, where he and his son Mutassim were killed.

Another son, Seif Al Arab, had perished in a NATO air raid in April 2011, and his brother Khamis died in combat four months later.

But other members of the Qadhafi clan survived, including his wife Safiya, eldest son Mohammed, daughter Aisha, heir apparent Seif Al Islam, high-roller Hannibal and playboy Saadi.

Italian clubs 

to wanted-list 

Saadi, the former head of Libya’s football federation, was primarily known for his brief career in Italian football until Interpol issued a notice against him and other members of his family over the deadly protest crackdown in 2011.

After playing with Libyan clubs, Saadi signed in 2003 with Italy’s Perugia, at the request of then Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who had close ties with the Libyan regime.

But Qadhafi rarely stepped foot on the field. He was suspended for three months in his second season for doping. His greatest achievement was playing 15 minutes against Juventus in May 2004.

Days before his father and brother were killed, Saadi told media the Interpol alert against him was political.

Though he was accused of shooting demonstrators and other crimes against protesters, Saadi is not wanted by the International Criminal Court, unlike his elder brother Seif Al Islam.

Speaking to The New York Times in July, Seif Al Islam, who had not been seen or heard from since 2014, indicated Libyan politics has not seen the last of the Qadhafi clan.

He said he was a free man organising his political return.