One Vote: Libya's Parliament Ratifies Turkish Deal in Bid for Presidency

Eastern Libya spent nearly seven years denouncing a maritime memorandum struck between Turkiye and Tripoli. Last week, the region needed a single legislative sitting to embrace the agreement.

On October 20, the House of Representatives in Benghazi ratified the deal. The European Union, Greece, Israel, and Egypt all condemned the vote. Yet the ratification served as the final act of a sequence choreographed by Saddam Haftar, the son of Khalifa Haftar, the military commander who controls eastern Libya. His ultimate goal is the Libyan presidency.

The United States is currently trying to broker a power-sharing arrangement between Tripoli and Benghazi. Championed by Massad Boulos, a senior adviser to US President Donald Trump, the deal could install Saddam as president. For that to happen, he needs the backing of Ankara, whose influence over western Libya gives it a decisive voice in any settlement. The ratification is meant to secure Turkey's blessing.

The opening move in Saddam's pursuit of power was a palace coup. A fortnight before the vote, the House unseated its speaker, Aguila Saleh, who had held the position for 12 years. This removed Cairo's principal ally in the east and the most stubborn obstacle to the memorandum's ratification. Saleh’s successor, Al-Salhin Abdulnabi, is a fellow Obeidi who chaired the House’s Libyan-Turkish friendship committee. He is positioned to defuse the risk of tribal backlash.

Saddam is counting on the Trump administration’s appetite for a Libyan deal. This interest has been sharpened by Turkish and Emirati lobbying and by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rapport with Trump. He hopes the deal can prevail over objections from Athens, Nicosia, and Israel. This pits Trump’s transactional instinct against a longstanding US partnership with the Greek-Cypriot-Israeli axis.

Europe has sidelined itself into near irrelevance. When Benghazi expelled the EU’s migration commissioner and three member-state ministers on arrival in July 2025, European capitals responded with deference rather than resolve. Less than a year later, Athens hosted Saddam, who sidestepped any commitment on an alternative maritime memorandum. The EU’s fixation on migration has reduced its Libya policy to counting boats leaving Libya’s eastern coast for Crete.

Abu Dhabi has every reason to look the other way because it wants Saddam to succeed. None of Khalifa’s sons has been more faithful to the Emiratis. Seeing their most loyal client installed at the apex of the Libyan state would cap a decade of investment in the Haftar project. A maritime line drawn in Ankara’s favor is a modest price for that outcome, though the closeness of that embrace may yet constrain him.

Egypt remains the real question mark. Cairo’s statement objected chiefly to the memorandum’s encroachment on Egypt’s exclusive economic zone. The response was framed almost entirely in legal terms, a sign that Cairo is keeping its political options open. Its relationship with Ankara has been transformed, with the two now aligned on Sudan and the Red Sea. Cairo could lean on its rapport with Ankara to champion an alternative Haftar heir. Saddam’s brother Khaled, the Libyan Arab Armed Forces’ chief of staff, is considerably closer to Cairo and publicly criticized the US initiative in April.