Berri supports extending term of Parliament

BEIRUT: Speaker Nabih Berri is more convinced of the need to extend Parliament’s term in light of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s opposition to holding parliamentary polls before electing a president, his visitors said Thursday.

Berri, who earlier strongly opposed extension, said that holding parliamentary elections in November amid a boycott by the Future Movement, the major representative of the Sunni sect in Lebanon, would be a violation of the National Pact, which is an unwritten arrangement that laid the foundation of Lebanon as a multi-confessional state.

He added that with elections not possible without the Future Movement, extension was necessary now to ensure that a Parliament would elect a new president.

“We cannot but support extension now because the vacuum in Parliament means that electing a president will become no longer possible,” Berri said. “Parliament elects the president. So who will elect him if there is no Parliament?”

Parliament’s term expires on Nov. 20. However, Berri said that he would only set a date for a Parliament session to approve extension after determining the stance of all political parties on the issue, particularly Christian groups, which have more than one opinion. The speaker added that the session should be held in accordance with the National Pact.

The Free Patriotic Movement and the Kataeb Party oppose extension, while the Lebanese Forces has yet to take a final stance. “The absence of all Christian parties would mean that the extension session would be violating the National Pact,” Berri said. The speaker added that any party had the right to challenge the extension law before the Constitutional Council.

“In this case, the group filing the challenge and the Constitutional Council will bear a joint responsibility [in case the challenge was approved] because this will throw Parliament into a vacuum,” Berri said. The speaker voiced fears that some parties wanted to drag the country into a total power vacuum as a prelude to calling for a conference to reconsider the Lebanese political system.

“I say from now that the Amal Movement and Hezbollah back extension,” Berri said.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on October 24, 2014, on page 1.

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