Beirut: As expected, Druze deputy Ghazi Aridi tabled the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) plan for a hybrid electoral law for Lebanon’s upcoming 2017 parliamentary elections, which is bound to raise the ante and further delay any accord.
Aridi provided an outline that foresaw a full division of the 128 parliamentary seats equally between majoritarian and proportional voting. According to this formula, voters would choose 64 deputies on a winner-take-all basis enshrined in the current so-called 1960 law (as modified in 2008) across 26 electoral constituents, with the remaining 64 posts chosen on the basis of proportionality in 11 electoral constituents based on administrative districts.
Aridi and the PSP reacted to Minister of Foreign Affairs Gibran Bassil and his Free Patriotic Movement proposal that called for electing 64 deputies according to a proportional representation system in five electorates, which would only allow voters to cast ballots for candidates from their own sects. What the PSP rejected was this sectarian feature with Walid Jumblatt warning that Bassil’s latest electoral proposal aimed to “marginalise” the minority Druze community, which he insisted was unacceptable.
While Aridi reiterated that the PSP did not favour a third extension of parliament’s term and insisted that the Druze rejected vacuum, this proposal is meant to buy additional time and thereby extend parliament’s current term-of-office.
Speaker Nabih Berri announced that he too would offer a new proposal shortly, precisely to reach an agreement before May 15, the latest deadline set for agreeing on a new vote law.
