Beirut: Less than a day after Minister of Interior Nouhad Mashnouq indicated that the Spring 2017 parliamentary elections would most probably rely on the infamous 1960 law, Speaker Nabih Berri chimed in, warning that such a scheme would be a blow to the country.
There was no alternative because parliament failed to vote on a new law.
Mashnouq’s comments, which were delivered at “The Parliamentary Electoral Legal Framework Conference,” held in Beirut on Wednesday, allegedly surprised most people. The current law is rejected by the Speaker’s Amal Party and most Christian constituents, and Berri insisted that he and President Michel Aoun “agreed on the need to prepare a new Parliamentary elections law”.
Lebanon’s polarised elites insisted on change and universally rejected the 1960 law winner-takes-all system in place, which was used in the last elections in 2009 that divided the country into administrative districts and that, presumably, gave undue advantage to the establishment.
Politicians are divided between adopting a new law that will either back proportional representation, or a hybrid electoral law that would include aspects of the proportional and current “winner-takes-all” system.
In reality, however, there is no will among existing political parties to accept the needed amendments since disputes linger over the percentage of seats allocated within each constituency.
For example, the Lebanese Forces, the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and Future Movement have all proposed a hybrid electoral law that would see 60 deputies elected based on proportional representation and the remaining 68 MPs elected on the current 1960 law.
The Amal Movement, led by Speaker Berri, has proposed its own version of a hybrid law that would equally divide deputies elected by proportional representation and winner-takes-all system at 64 each.
Akram Chehayeb, the Minister of Agriculture who is also a leading member of the PSP, declared that his party wished to hold timely elections and rejected any new Parliament mandate extension, which meant that it agreed to stage the elections based on the 1960 vote, especially if there is a “national consensus that abides by the Constitution”.
Others were expected to follow, especially after Mashnouq clarified that “adopting a new electoral law would require months of administrative preparation, education of voters and training of employees and monitors, which would require a technical postponement of the elections”.
Once composed, the new parliament, which would presumably be elected in the Spring of 2017 for a four-year term, is likely to resemble the current one.
