Libya’s eastern-based House of Representatives has elected a new speaker, ending Aguila Saleh’s 12-year tenure, according to a report by Al Jazeera drawing on AFP and Reuters. Legislators in the 170-member House voted on Tuesday 6 October to replace Saleh with Al-Salhin Abdelnabi al-Obeidi, the parliament’s spokesperson announced on X, the report said.
A New Term Limit and a Disputed Process
The vote came a day after 98 members of the House approved a new system limiting the speaker and deputy speakers to a single 12-month term, Al Jazeera reported. That ended an arrangement in place since the chamber’s first leadership was elected in 2014. The House also elected Tarek al-Ashtar and Mesbah Douma as first and second deputy speakers.
Lawmaker Jebree Oheida told Reuters there had been significant discontent among members with the previous leadership over decisions taken without consulting them. The Libya Observer, cited by Al Jazeera, reported that the vote was overseen by Second Deputy Speaker Misbah Douma, and that Saleh had rejected the proceedings, saying the initial vote to limit the speaker’s term was “not official and had no legal effect”. The same report said Saleh had announced that he had cancelled the session he had called for Tuesday.
The Wider Political Picture
Al Jazeera noted that Libya remains divided between the United Nations-recognised government in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east backed by military commander Khalifa Haftar, whose camp relies in particular on the parliament sitting in Benghazi. Saleh has long been considered an ally of the Haftar family, but analysts said he appeared weakened as Haftar’s sons consolidated their positions. Emadeddin Badi of Chatham House was quoted as describing Saleh as the latest casualty of Saddam Haftar’s drive to centralise decision-making in eastern Libya.
The report said the changes follow an August agreement signed in Tripoli by representatives of Libya’s rival political camps, mediated by the UN Support Mission in Libya, which could see presidential and legislative elections held within two years.
Why It Matters
The change of speaker is, on the report’s account, both a shift within the eastern camp and a procedural dispute, since Saleh disputes the legal basis of the vote. How the contested process is treated by other Libyan institutions, and by the UN-mediated track towards elections, will determine whether the new leadership is widely accepted.
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