BEIRUT: Lebanon’s major political parties are discussing the adoption of a new parliamentary electoral system that incorporates two rounds of voting, a source familiar with the ongoing negotiations told Annahar.
The source said the first round will be based on a plurality voting system in the 26 districts that represent the electoral constituencies under the current law whereby Christian and Muslim voters will only cast ballots to candidates from the same religion.
Candidates that pass the first round of voting will be eligible to participate in the second round which will take place based on a proportional representation system in ten electoral constituencies, the source added.
Negotiations on the new electoral system have made little headway, the source noted, saying rival parties remain deadlocked over the number of candidates that will qualify from each district to the second round of voting and the makeup of the ten electoral constituencies in the second stage.
While Christian parties including the Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces insist that only the top two candidates qualify to the second round, the Future Movement wants to raise the number of eligible candidates to three.
Speaker Nabih Berri’s Amal Movement, on the other hand, demands that all candidates who secure 10 percent of the district’s electorate qualify to the second round.
The failure to reach an agreement over a new electoral law had prompted Speaker Nabih Berri on Tuesday to call on Parliament’s general assembly to meet to extend the legislature’s term for a third consecutive time.
The session that was scheduled for Thursday was, however, adjourned to May 15, after President Michel Aoun blocked the legislature meeting in line with article 59 of the Constitution, which stipulates that “the President of the Republic may adjourn the Chamber for a period not exceeding one month.”
Aoun was the first president to exercise this prerogative since Lebanon’s independence after the FPM and the LF threatened to take to the streets to block the extension of parliament’s term, raising once again concerns over rising sectarian tensions in Lebanon.
Berri argues that the extension of Parliament’s term is essential to avoid vacuum in the legislative branch whose term expire on June 20, 2017.
Concerns that the president was planning to exercise this prerogative to block the extension of Parliament’s term has prompted Berri to convene the general assembly at least a month prior to the end of the ordinary legislative session on May 31 when the legislature will no longer be able to convene without the approval of the president and the prime minister.
According to article 33 of the constitution, both the president and the prime minister must authorize extraordinary sessions.
Aoun insists that the extension of Parliament’s term should be coupled with the ratification of a new parliamentary electoral system and should be limited to only a few months to prepare for polls based on the new law.
The current law, which originally dates back to 1960, was amended and adopted in 2008 as part of a comprehensive deal struck in Doha. The Doha Accord ended an 18-month political feud that had exploded on May 7, 2008, into deadly sectarian fighting, between Shiite Hezbollah gunmen and Sunni pro-Future Movement supporters, threatening to plunge Lebanon into all-out chaos.
The government has already adjourned parliamentary elections twice, citing security concerns linked to the conflict in neighboring Syria. In 2013, lawmakers voted to extend parliament’s term by 17 months and then voted again in 2014 to extend their tenure an additional two years and seven months.
