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The Libyan House of Representatives - which holds its sessions in the city of Benghazi (east of the country) - elected Representative Al-Salhin Abdul Nabi as its speaker for the new parliamentary session, thus turning the page on Counselor Aguila Saleh, who has been the Speaker of Parliament since 2014.

Abdullah Belhaq, spokesman for the council, said on Tuesday evening that Abdul Nabi was elected as Saleh’s successor, during a session held under the chairmanship of Saleh’s second deputy, Mesbah Douma. Abdul Nabi belongs to the Obaidat tribe, from which Saleh, who is 82 years old, descends.

The House of Representatives held its session, at its headquarters in Benghazi, headed by the Second Deputy; With the intention of electing the Presidency, in an atmosphere prior to the session that was marred by deep disagreements and division between Saleh loyalists, including his first deputy, Fawzi Al-Nuwairi, and others calling for a re-discussion of amending the internal regulations in order to elect a new president of the Council.

Abdul Nabi has represented the Tobruk sub-constituency in the House of Representatives since 2014, and his activities include membership in the Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Committee, and chairmanship of the Libyan-Turkish Parliamentary Friendship Committee, in addition to his participation in regional and international parliamentary meetings and conferences, and the activities of the Arab Parliamentary Union.

Following the election of Abdel Nabi, in the presence of 110 representatives, the Council proceeded on Tuesday evening to elect the First Vice President of the Council from among the candidates: Tariq Al-Ashtar, Al-Siddiq Hamouda, and Ezz Al-Din Qwairab. The Obaidat, one of the largest and most prominent Libyan tribes in the Jabal Akhdar region and Tobruk and their environs in eastern Libya.

The Libyan House of Representatives legally consists of 200 seats, of which only 188 seats were filled in the 2014 elections due to the inability to vote in some districts for security reasons, while the number of actually practicing members today is lower than that number as a result of incidents of death, resignation, and boycott.

Last week, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, Commander-in-Chief of the National Army, met with a number of parliamentarians against the backdrop of a crisis with its president, Saleh, and the meeting ended with Haftar confirming his support for “the efforts aimed at ending the state of division and unifying state institutions, appreciating the role of the House of Representatives in the political track and the outcomes of the (4+4) committee.”

Representative Issam Al-Jahani, who attended the meeting, said, “It was agreed to support what would unify Parliament for the sake of reforms, most notably amending the internal regulations and choosing a new presidency for the Council, in addition to moving forward by continuing to support the 4+4 agreement and the constitutional amendment.”