Bassil Insists on Reforms as Panel Fails to Agree on Electoral 'Megacenters'

A ministerial panel tasked with studying the implementation of the complex new electoral law on Tuesday failed to reach an agreement on so-called polling megacenters where voters can cast ballots away from their hometowns.

“No agreement was reached on the issue of megacenters, seeing as some support their establishment while others do not want them,” State Minister Ali Qansou of the Syrian Social National Party said after the meeting.

Social Affairs Minister Pierre Bou Assi of the Lebanese Forces meanwhile said: “Our stance is clear: we in the LF back the idea of creating megacenters because they would allow citizens to vote in their places of residence.”

And as Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq of al-Mustaqbal Movement declined to make a statement after the meeting, Foreign Minister and Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil stressed that the FPM will “fight for” electoral reforms.

“They have come up with a lot of excuses to back down from the reforms,” Bassil said later in the day after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform bloc.

“It will be obligatory to amend the law due to the failure to achieve (the reforms), or else the results of the elections might face appeals” before the Constitutional Council, Bassil warned.

Emphasizing that the law compels the government to introduce magnetic voting cards, the minister said a draft law would be necessary to postpone the procedure to the next elections.

“We can agree in advance on the issue. It would only take two minutes and it would not lead to further amendments,” Bassil reassured.