Libya elections: Can internal conflict move from bullets to ballots?

It was not the turning of the page that many had hoped for after years of conflict, but a callback to Libya’s troubled authoritarian past: a Qaddafi dressed in a distinctive brown turban and robe, addressing the nation on live television from Tripoli.

So attired, in February 2011, Muammar Qaddafi had vowed to amass an army of millions to “cleanse Libya inch by inch, house by house” of pro-democracy protesters.

This time, on Nov. 14, it was Seif al-Islam Qaddafi, the slain dictator’s son, ceremoniously registering for Libya’s first-ever presidential election on Dec. 24, and asking for the people’s vote.

Yet Mr. Qaddafi, still subject to a decade-old International Criminal Court arrest warrant for alleged war crimes, was hardly the only controversial candidate.

Gen. Khalifa Haftar – a warlord who ran eastern Libya as an independent entity, has