Report: Berri Pushes for Agreement on Electoral Law after Completion of Municipal Polls

Speaker Nabih Berri said that time is not in favor of stalling over reaching an agreement on a new electoral draft-law and pointed out that the momentum witnessed during the municipal elections enhances the chances of adopting a proportional electoral law, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Wednesday.

“Time is not in favor of a standstill with regard to the electoral law. What happened during the municipal elections heightens the momentum towards the adoption of a proportional law, particularly that the polls have shown that no single party can monopolize a specific sect,” visitors to Berri quoted him as saying.

“Proportionality saves the country and keeps the fittest in order to achieve just representation,” he added.

The speaker emphasized the need to benefit from the municipal elections, which raised family and religious sentiments in order to push for staging the parliamentary ones.

Municipal elections were held during the month of May over a four-stage period.

In an interview to As Safir daily, Berri assured that the parliamentary elections are inevitable and that there will be no term extension this time.

Parliament has extended its term twice, once in 2013 and another in 2014, due to officials' failure to agree on a new electoral law.

Its term ends in June 2017.

In May, Berri proposed a deal that calls for shortening the term of the current parliament and staging the parliamentary polls and later the presidential ones.

The parliamentary elections would be held based on the proportionality electoral law.

Should the political powers fail to agree on this law, then the 1960 one would be used. This law was adopted in the 2009 elections.

The package deal also calls for electing a new parliament speaker and bureau and forming a national unity government.

Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014 when the term of Michel Suleiman ended.

D.A.

M.T.