Christian Leaders Seek to Unite Stance ahead of Bkirki Meeting
Consultations are ongoing among Christian leaders ahead of a wide meeting at Bkirki on Friday to discuss the new electoral law and a two-page proposal agreed upon between Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Najib Miqati.
According to al-Joumhouria newspaper published on Thursday, the Phalange party, Lebanese Forces party, Marada Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement are discussing the possibility of uniting their stances over the proposal.
The newspaper said that al-Rahi will brief the four leaders of the christian parties during Bkirki's meeting on the agreement reached with Berri and Miqati in Rome on Monday.
Media reports said that the two-page document states that political foes should consent on a hybrid electoral law that divides the parliamentary seats equally based on winner-takes-all and proportional systems or 60 percent of MPs be elected through the winner-takes-all and 40 according to the proportional system.
The document also calls on the formation of a senate, where senators would be elected according to the Orthodox Gathering proposal.
The proposal also suggests the formation of an independent authority overseeing the elections and carrying out the senate elections and parliamentary elections on the same day.
In addition to the formation of a new cabinet to supervise the polls.
FPM leader MP Michel Aoun rejected on Tuesday any alternative to the Orthodox Gathering electoral draft-law.
“I was not informed of any of the discussions that were held in Rome,” he said after the Change and Reform bloc's weekly meeting.
Al-Joumhouria reported that Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel will reiterate during Bkirki meeting his rejection to the adoption of the 1960 law, which is based on winner-takes-all system.
Gemayel will also stress his rejection to the postponement of the polls.
A consensus over an electoral law has yet to be reached after the Orthodox Gathering's proposal that considers Lebanon a single district and allows each sect to vote for its own MPs under a proportional representation system, was opposed by President Michel Suleiman, Prime Minister Miqati, al-Mustaqbal bloc, the PSP, and the independent Christian MPs of the March 14 opposition.
They argue that the proposal harms the social fabric and increases sectarian tension.
Suleiman and Miqati have signed a decree that sets the elections on June 9 based on the 1960 law that was used in the 2009 polls over the lack of agreement between the bickering parliamentary blocs.
Their call have drawn the ire of the March 8 majority coalition which has rejected the law.
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Seek
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joke??
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yea
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hahaha
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no
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unite
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Manchester United
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You guys christians and muslims and druze are bunsh of idiots! you are hipnotized by your leader's well spoking words , any body in this pethatic country who can talk can be a leader! even asir!! and what sad is people follow like sheeps! and no one realy care about this beautiful country any more,, if your leaders care about lebanon they would be united now for the sake of lebanon!! but no each one leader is miowing and nagging and complaining,,, bunsh of losers, glad that i left!! i will come back when each one of you stand up for thier country and not for thier pethatic leaders!
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I think you'll never return to Lebanon!
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Let us wait and see which Christian party will fall prey to the M14's plot. !!!
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Patriarch Rai may have finally accomplished something constructive. The Hybrid Election Law, the text of which is not published anywhere yet that I have found, does have good aspects especially in the fact that it provides for the creation of a Lebanese Senate wherein the 50-50 secular formula of the Taif Accord is manifested, though use of the Orthodox Gathering plan of segregating the electorate is a step backwards. I supposed Aoun had to be accommodated.
That the Cabinet will resign and a neutral cabinet will preside over the election is a positive feature, and one that will probably kill the proposal since Hezbollah will not agree to lose control of the electoral process. An independent authority to oversee the process is positive, but again, Hezbollah will not let this process get away from its control.
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The better plan is to elect the Chamber of Deputies free of sectarian identity of the candidates or the winners. Let this body represent the current actual demographics of the country.
Then create the Lebanese Senate wherein the Taif Accord formula will be preserved and the Christian - Moslem allocation of 50-50 result. The Lebanese Senate and the Chamber of Deputies would both be required to approve proposed legislation in the same form before a proposal could be returned to the PM for promulgation as law.
The Rome Accord, however, is a start to this end, if it can get off the ground. I will be interested to see how the Persian Agent Aoun responds and to what extent his masters in Iran and Dahieh allow him to agree to the Hybrid Plan, which is the Berri Plan, after all.
Christian