Report: Preparations for Parliamentary Polls Going in Two Parallel Lines
A committee tasked with overlooking the upcoming parliamentary elections and providing the needed funds for the Interior Ministry to stage the elections on time, will be conducted before February 10, which marks the beginning of the constitutional deadline, An Nahar daily reported Saturday.
Official sources told the daily on condition of anonymity that “an undisclosed political agreement was reached to gear up for the elections in two parallel line. The first would be setting up the preparations for staging them based on the current 1960 electoral law, in conjunction with a similar workshop to reach a new electoral law.
“Shall it be agreed to stage the polls based on a new law, it would include a technical postponement for the elections in order to update the mechanisms, and hence hold them in June instead of May,” they told the daily.
Lebanon's political parties are bickering over amending the current election law which divides seats among the different religious sects.
The country has not voted for a parliament since 2009, with the legislature instead twice extending its own mandate.
The 2009 polls were held under an amended version of the 1960 electoral law and the next elections are scheduled for May 2017.
Hizbullah has repeatedly called for an electoral law based on proportional representation but other political parties, especially al-Mustaqbal Movement, have rejected the proposal and argued that the party's controversial arsenal of arms would prevent serious competition in regions where the Iran-backed party is influential.
Mustaqbal, the Lebanese Forces and the Progressive Socialist Party have meanwhile proposed a hybrid electoral law that mixes the proportional representation and the winner-takes-all systems. Speaker Nabih Berri has also proposed a hybrid law.
Source: Naharnet
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