Speaker Nabih Berri has called on the Parliament Bureau on Wednesday to form the committee charged with drafting a new electoral law within a two-month period, the March 14 alliance was informed according to al Joumhouria daily on Tuesday.
The committee will be charged with drafting the law and to find common factors within the existing laws within a two-month period.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) appealed to the Supreme Election Board (YSK) on Monday to ask for the cancelation of the results of the Nov. 1 general election.
The HDP received fewer votes in the Nov. 1 snap election than in the previous general election held on June 7. Although the party obtained 13 percent of the vote on June 7, its support dropped to 10 percent on Nov. 1, following the renewed conflict between Turkish security forces and the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is assessing what led to its crushing defeat at the hands of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Nov. 1 election, MHP head Devlet Bahçeli has said, in his first parliamentary group meeting since the poll.
Admitting that the MHP fell short of expectations in the election, Bahçeli also claimed that the results did not mark a “defeat” for the party. The MHP lost almost two million votes in five months, while the AKP increased its votes by nearly four million.
The national assembly of Turkey, most members of which were reelected in Nov. 1 snap elections following the June 7 elections, gathers on Nov. 17 for an oath taking ceremony, the kick off procedure for the forming of a new government.
Deniz Baykal, the former leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), will hold the post of temporary parliament speaker until the parliament elects its speaker.
KABUL (Pajhwok): Some Meshrano Jirga or upper house of parliament members on Sunday insisted on the announcement of parliamentary election schedule and asked the proposed selection commission to commence its work as soon as possible.
Senator Gul Ahmad Azami told today’s session that the delay in holding the elections was tantamount to killing democracy.
He said not conducting elections made people hopeless and if the process was not accelerated, there would be more problems in the country.
SHARJAH // The first elections to the Sharjah Consultative Council will begin on January 30 and last for two days.
Those elected to the 21 seats will serve a four-year term.
The Sharjah Ruler, Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, in June announced that half the consultative council would be elected, with the other 21 seats filled by Ruler appointees.
KABUL (Pajhwok): Provincial councils (PCs) members in 26 provinces on Sunday voted to elect their administrative boards and the ballot was postponed till Monday in the remaining eight provinces mostly due to a lack of quorum, an official said.
Speaker Nabih Berri hailed the recent stances of Mustaqbal Movement chief MP Saad Hariri and Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, noting that they have made “progress” in reaching common positions, reported the daily al-Mustaqbal on Monday.
He told the daily: “We need a complete agreement, starting with the election of a president.”
The positions of Hariri and Nasrallah are in line with the agenda of the national dialogue, which he is sponsoring, he remarked.
Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader and former Prime Minister Saad Hariri stated on Sunday that he is eager for a solution that meets the will of the Lebanese in a bid to end the vacuum at the top state post.
“We are eagerly waiting for a course that meets the will of the majority of the Lebanese in order to find a solution for the presidential vacuum,” said Hariri via twitter.
“We have always called for setting a road map that primarily begins with an agreement on a president,” he added.
THATTA: Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari led a big rally from Sujawal to Thatta on Sunday in a bid to make a direct contact with the people of the two districts as part of the party’s election campaign for the second phase of the local government polls in the province.
Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi urged Lebanese factions on Sunday to get rid of the obstacles hampering the election of a president, as he extended condolences over the victims of the Bourj al-Barajneh and Paris bombings that left several dead, the National News Agency said.
“We urge the Christian political forces to seek to remove all the hurdles hampering the election of a president, and to facilitate the process as fast as possible and to agree with the allying political factions on a new electoral law,” said Rahi during the Sunday mass in Bkirki.
The state-owned Turkish Satellite Communications Company (Türksat) dropped a total of 13 TV and radio channels including Samanyolu TV, Mehtap TV, S Haber and Radio Cihan that are critical of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) as of Saturday 12 a.m., in a severe blow to already deteriorating press freedoms in Turkey.
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has failed to live up to its promises to bring “stability and serenity” to the country, the nationalist opposition leader said, while also offering condolences to Paris following the Nov. 13 jihadist attack on the French capital.
KARACHI: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has convened a meeting in Islamabad on Saturday to decide whether or not the local government (LG) elections in lower Sindh need to be postponed given the precarious law and order situation.
JTA — In April 2014, nearly 60 percent of Israel’s 1.7 million Arab citizens said they felt “part of the state and its problems.” The 11 months that followed saw the nationalistically motivated murders of four teenagers — three Jewish and one Arab — a two-month war in the Gaza Strip, a wave of terror in Jerusalem and a tense election campaign.
By March 2015, the month of the election, only 28 percent of Arab-Israelis felt part of the country and its problems.
Twin suicide bombings rocked a busy shopping street Thursday in the Beirut southern suburb of Bourj al-Barajneh, killing 43 people and wounding 239 others, in the worst such attack in years.
NNA said the attack was carried out by two suicide bombers who blew up their explosive vests in the Ain al-Sikkeh street.
The Internal Security Forces said two men on foot set off suicide vests in front of a shopping center.
Police broke into the newsrooms of the Zaman and Today's Zaman dailies and the Aksiyon weekly magazine, part of the Zaman Media Group, in the Yenibosna neighborhood of İstanbul late on Wednesday, with helicopters hovering above and water cannon and riot police in front of the building.
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has put the final touches on its timeline to form a new government, as the country’s top election body released the final results of the Nov. 1 snap elections, confirming the AKP had regained its parliamentary majority.
Accordingly, members of the national assembly will take their oaths on Nov. 17 and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will commission Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to form the new government on the same day.
