Aisha Gaddafi Tops Unofficial Libya Poll as Old Regime Bloc Regroups

Aisha Gaddafi, daughter of Libya’s former leader Muammar Gaddafi, finished first in a September online poll asking participants to select the country’s “best candidate,” taking 141,502 votes out of 549,954 and finishing 30,227 ahead of the runner-up. The platform itself says the poll is unofficial and is not an election or referendum.

Al Hadath reported on October 6 that the tally coincides with a burst of calls from organizations aligned with the former-regime camp for Aisha to take over its political leadership after the death of her brother Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.

Women of Fezzan and Free Women of Fezzan have endorsed her taking the lead, while the National Popular Movement associated with Saif al-Islam pledged support for Aisha to continue the political current he had led.

The maneuvering also sits inside the wider struggle over sovereignty and political authority covered in Pamphlets’ latest Africa reporting.

A poll, not a mandate

The number is politically useful to Aisha’s supporters, but it cannot be read as a national vote share. An online poll with no independently demonstrated representative sample says something about mobilization on that platform; it does not establish what Libya’s electorate would do in a real election.

Reuters documented Aisha’s public re-emergence in Moscow in October 2024, when she opened an exhibition of paintings dedicated to her father and brother. The appearance put the Gaddafi name back on a high-visibility stage after years in which she had remained largely outside formal Libyan politics.

The bigger story is the vacuum inside the Gaddafi-aligned camp. Saif al-Islam had long been the family’s principal political vehicle and attempted to enter Libya’s abortive 2021 presidential contest. With that route gone, supporters are searching for another figure capable of holding together a recognizable constituency around the family name.

Aisha has not announced a formal presidential campaign or accepted a defined leadership post. Until she does, the September result is best read as a signal of organized enthusiasm inside a fractured political landscape—not as proof that Libya has chosen a new leader.