MP Ammar Houri denied on Friday reports claiming that al-Mustaqbal Movement has shown “openness” to discussing an electoral law fully based on proportional representation that had been devised by Najib Miqati’s government.
“Reports circulating that Mustaqbal has reached a format close to the so-called hybrid law is but the same format it has earlier agreed on with the Lebanese Forces and the Progressive Socialist Party,” Houri clarified in an interview with the VDL (100.5).
The Mustaqbal MP stressed that Mustaqbal will not take into consideration the so-called Miqati law saying: “The Miqati election law is out of question because it calls for staging the elections under a full proportional representation.”
On Thursday, media reports said that Prime Minister and Mustaqbal chief Saad Hariri has shown “openness” to discussing Miqati’s law.
While Mustaqbal had previously rejected that the electoral law be fully based on proportional representation, arguing that Hizbullah’s arms would prevent serious competition in the party’s strongholds, Druze leader MP Walid Jumblat has totally rejected proportional representation, even within a hybrid law, warning that it would “marginalize” the minority Druze community.
Hizbullah, Mustaqbal, AMAL, the Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces are meanwhile discussing several formats of a so-called hybrid electoral law that mixes proportional representation with the winner-takes-all system.
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 and the next vote is scheduled for May.
