By Libya Herald reporter.
Tunis, 5 June 2017:
Almost 100 members of the House of Representatives (HoR) have called for its president, Ageela Saleh, to be replaced, accusing him of “grabbing all the powers of the House of Representatives and ignoring the rest of the deputies”.
Expressing their determination to reform the HoR, some 94 members said in a statement yesterday that Saleh was treating the parliament as if it were his private company. Members were being ignored.
They said that, if necessary they would hold a meeting in Benghazi to discuss the matter if prevented from holding one in Tobruk.
Doing so would be extremely problematical. While it is thought that a majority of members of the HoR would like to see Saleh replaced, he had managed through deft use of its rules to ensure that there have been no sessions to debate and vote on the matter, or indeed any issue to which he is opposed.
However, Benghazi is the official seat of the HoR, although because of the conflict it never went there. For him to say that it was not safe to now go to Benghazi would put him at odds with the eastern military leadership which says that apart from Sabri and Suq Al-Hout the city is entirely safe.
Last week, the HoR set up a 12-member committee to review the the parliament’s internal regulations. It is hoped the move will bring an end to the current boycott over the way the parliament is being run. In April, a number of members announced they were suspending their membership until there was a fresh vote on appointing the new governor of the Central Bank of Libya. They accused Second Deputy President Ahmaid Huma, who had chaired a session on the issue, of deliberately ignoring HoR procedure.
