Shouting, walkouts and loss of quorum as parliament debates electoral law

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri threatened Monday to adjourn a legislative session after MP Ali Hassan Khalil of Berri’s bloc accused the Lebanese Forces of not wanting parliamentary elections and a verbal clash ensued.

Khalil voiced his remarks after MP Georges Adwan of the LF said his party would suspend its participation in the sessions of the subcommittee discussing the electoral law, prompting Khalil to say that “it’s clear that the brothers want to torpedo the elections.”

Adwan and the LF’s MPs clapped sarcastically at that point, pushing Khalil to accuse them of disrespecting him in a “shameful” way and the LF lawmakers to hit back.

“We must put the urgent electoral law bill on the agenda of parliament. Let us at least ensure that the elections will take place and after that we would study the other laws. That’s why we suspend our participation in the meetings of the subcommittee that is discussing electoral laws,” Adwan said.

During the session, Kataeb Party chief MP Sami Gemayel asked Interior Minister Ahmad al-Hajjar whether the elections can be organized according to the current law and the latter said that it is not possible.

“Stop thinking of bypassing the current law,” Berri responded, to which Gemayel said: “We don’t want to vote for the 128 MPs (abroad), we cant the six seats (stipulated by the current law), can they implement the law?”

Gemayel later announced the withdrawal of Kataeb’s MPs from the session after Berri refused to put the current law on the agenda for discussion.

“If the electoral law issue is not discussed in this session, I fear that we would be eliminating expat voting and postponing the elections or holding them without granting expats the right to vote,” Gemayel told reporters.

MP Ali Fayyad of Hezbollah meanwhile noted that expat voting in general creates a confessional representation problem, arguing that Hezbollah cannot stage proper electoral campaigns abroad while its rivals can. He added that accordingly Hezbollah prefers that expats vote for only six newly-introduced seats and not the current 128.

Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil meanwhile demanded the implementation of the current electoral law.

MP Farid al-Khazen meanwhile wrote on X: “What we’re witnessing today in parliament signals that the postponement train has departed.”

The MPs of the Lebanese Forces and their allies later walked out of the session, stripping it of its quorum and forcing Berri to adjourn it to Tuesday.