Beirut: Three of Lebanon’s most prominent Christian political parties plan to boycott a scheduled parliamentary session later this week aimed at extending the legislature’s term for the third time since 2009 because of failure to reach consensus over a new electoral law.
The last time Lebanese voted for parliament was in 2009 — its mandate was extended twice since then.
The Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), the Lebanese Forces (LF) and the Phalange Party have voice repeated criticism of the 1960 electoral law, which still holds today, and have called for amending it.
They say the law marginalises Christian voters, because, in the winner-take-all model Muslim voters in predominantly Christian districts cast their ballots to candidates backed by lists dominated by non-Christian parties.
Extensive discussions on reforming the law in the past few months have been fruitless thus far.
The powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah group wants proportional representation or the winner-takes-all system since that would give it potential control of parliament due to its large numbers.
On his part, Druze leader Walid Junblatt and Progressive Socialist Party chief is also again proportional representation because the Druze are a minority in Lebanon representing approximately less than 8 per cent of the entire population.
Junblatt prefers a behind the scenes “consensual agreement” rather than an open vote either at the cabinet or parliament levels.
The largely Sunni Future movement and their LF allies say they are open for discussing proportional representation despite their reservations and have pushed for a so-called hybrid electoral law that combines proportional representation with the winner-takes-all system.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has rejected the boycott and accused the three Christian parties of perpetuating parliamentary vacuum.
