The head of the Supreme Council of State Khaled Al-Mashri said the entry of Saif Al-Islam and Haftar within the presidential candidates is one of the main reasons why elections could not be held.

Al-Machri said in a TV statement, that entering Saif al-Islam to elections was not good, because he has a death penalty and this judgment is still valid. He did not stand before the court and therefore he is seen as a fugitive and must settle this issue, in addition to being a person unable to reunite with Libyans because what his family suffered from the 17 February Revolution will make him a vengeful figure.

With regard to Haftar, Al-Machri said that his legal and military backgrounds prevented him from being a candidate for the presidential election because he had tried to take Tripoli by force and had committed violations in Benghazi, Derna and many Libyan cities, in addition to acquiring United States citizenship. The two figures therefore have political and legal reasons to prevent them from entering the elections and to destroy the electoral landscape.

Al-Machri noted that the solution suggested was a referendum on the Constitution, to go on the path of easing military confrontations and to try to achieve reconciliation on genuine grounds, including transitional justice and reparation, as well as to pass consensual laws between the Assembly of Representatives and the Council of State for the conduct of elections.

He also noted the need to clean up the electoral record and to ensure that there was no fraud in those elections. He said that the elections, if held last December, would have been highly rigged, since more than 30% of the votes could have been rigged.

He also noted the need to purify the electoral register and the presence of guarantees for non-fraud in these elections, stressing that the elections occurred in December to have seen significantly as more than 30% of the votes could have been forced, as saying.