Kanaan: Lebanon at Dangerous Crossroads over Electoral Law
MP Ibrahim Kanaan warned on Tuesday that Lebanon faces an actual crisis shall political efforts fail to reach a new law to govern the parliamentary elections, as he urged the government to shoulder the responsibility.
“The government, according to the constitution, must carry out its duty at the level of the electoral law by approving the draft and referring it to the parliament, especially that the parliament has failed to resolve this file for years,” said Kanaan.
He stressed that responsibilities must not be abolished, noting “the issue is strictly political. There is either a will to approve a new law or not, particularly that the political blocs in the cabinet are the same that make up the parliament,” he told VDL (93.3).
The MP said everyone “must sense the seriousness of the phase that Lebanon approaches as the parliament’s term reaches its end without having a new law or specific date to stage the elections.”
“Lebanon is at dangerous crossroads,” warned Kanaan as he urged for the “stabilization of hope that was born with the new term” of President Michel Aoun, urging all political parties to keep the vows they made on reaching a new election law.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has also warned that failure to approve a new electoral law might lead to a “coup-like situation” in the country.
He warned that the government's procrastination or failure to pass the law “might lead to a coup-like situation that topples everything.”
According to reports, intensive contacts will be held after Prime Minister Saad Hariri's return from his foreign trip “in order to put the law on the Cabinet's agenda with the aim of approving it and referring it to parliament.”
The country has not organized parliamentary elections since 2009 and the legislature has instead twice extended its own mandate. The last polls were held under an amended version of the 1960 electoral law.
Hizbullah has repeatedly called for an electoral law fully based on the proportional representation system and a single or several large electorates.
Druze leader Walid Jumblat has rejected proportional representation, warning that it would "marginalize" his minority Druze community, whose presence is concentrated in the Aley and Chouf areas.
Amid reservations over proportional representation by other parties such as al-Mustaqbal Movement and the Lebanese Forces, the political parties are mulling a so-called hybrid electoral law that mixes proportional representation with the winner-takes-all system.
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has recently proposed an electoral law that mixes proportional representation with the controversial law proposed by the Orthodox Gathering.
Source: Naharnet
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