The parliament's plenary session that Speaker Nabih Berri has scheduled for Thursday and Friday will “pave the way for extending the parliament's term,” a media report said on Sunday.
“The session will pave the way for extension, which until now is being opposed by President (Michel) Aoun and his parliamentary bloc in addition to the MPs of the Kataeb Party,” the Saudi pan-Arab daily al-Hayat quoted an MP as saying.
“This means that Speaker Berri is once again taking the initiative after he had left the mission of finding an electoral law to the political forces, especially to the new cooperation channels between Aoun and (PM Saad) Hariri, who have failed to reach a result,” al-Hayat added.
Berri has said that it is necessary to issue a law extending parliament's term before an April 15 deadline, “or else the legislative authority would slide into vacuum.”
“The issue of extending parliament's term might be raised politically during the Thursday-Friday session, because voting on any extension proposal should take place during a legislative session that could be held a week later – unless a miracle happens and an agreement on a new electoral law is reached ahead of the April 15 deadline,” al-Hayat quoted parliamentary sources as saying.
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.
Hizbullah has repeatedly called for an electoral law fully based on the proportional representation system and a single or several large electorates.
Druze leader Walid Jumblat has rejected proportional representation, warning that it would "marginalize" his minority Druze community, whose presence is concentrated in the Aley and Chouf areas.
Amid reservations over proportional representation by other parties such as al-Mustaqbal Movement and the Lebanese Forces, the political parties are mulling a so-called hybrid electoral law that mixes proportional representation with the winner-takes-all system.
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has recently proposed an electoral law that mixes proportional representation with the controversial law proposed by the Orthodox Gathering.
Date: 01/04/2017
