BEIRUT: A parliamentary subcommittee tasked with examining a raft of draft electoral laws agreed Wednesday on a mechanism to address the issue on the basis of proportional representation and a winner-takes-all system.
Wednesday’s was the fifth meeting held by the 11-member subcommittee, made up of March 8 and March 14 lawmakers, since MPs from rival blocs extended Parliament’s mandate for two years and seven months on Nov. 5.
Despite five rounds of deliberations, the members remain split over two key electoral proposals.
A proposal presented by MP Ali Bazzi from Speaker Nabih Berri’s parliamentary bloc that calls for electing half of Parliament’s 128 members on the basis of proportional representation and the other half according to the winner-takes-all system.
A counterproposal was put forward by the Future Movement and supported by its Christian ally, the Lebanese Forces, which calls for electing 68 lawmakers on the basis of proportional representation and 60 lawmakers according to the winner-takes-all system.
MP Marwan Hamade, who missed the last two meetings because he was out of Lebanon, attended Wednesday’s session, while Kataeb MP Sami Gemayel did not attend because he was on a trip abroad.
The panel was given a one-month deadline that expires at the end of December to agree on a unified electoral draft law to replace the 1960 system deemed unfair by the Christian community.
“Committee members have agreed on a mechanism to address the electoral issue on the basis of proportional [representation] and a winner-takes-all system,” MP Robert Ghanem, who chaired the subcommittee’s talks, told reporters after the meeting held in Parliament.
Ghanem, the head of the Parliamentary Justice and Administration Committee, said the panel’s talks were based on Berri’s electoral proposal presented by Bazzi which, he said, did not differ much from the draft law submitted by other parliamentary blocs, which calls for electing 68 lawmakers on the basis of proportional representation and 60 lawmakers according to the winner-takes-all system.
According to Ghanem, Hamadeh, who represents MP Walid Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party in the subcommittee, upheld his support for the Future-LF proposal.
“After it has been studied, it turned out that there are no big differences between this [Future-LF] proposal and Speaker Berri’s proposal,” Ghanem said. “Therefore, we said we have made two steps forward pending the next session.”
He added that the subcommittee would meet at 10 a.m. next Wednesday to continue its discussions on a new electoral law.
Ghanem has said the subcommittee was not a decision-making body because the final decision would be made by Parliament’s General Assembly by the end of December.
Hamade told the subcommittee that the PSP supported the Future-LF electoral proposal, which makes the Chouf mountain and the town of Aley one electoral district while retaining Baabda, the Metn, Kesrouan and Jbeil as one district.
However, Berri’s proposal divides Mount Lebanon into two electoral districts: One that includes the Chouf, Aley and Baabda, and the other that includes the Metn, Kesrouan and Jbeil.
When Hamade highlighted the special stature of the Druze community in the Chouf mountain, the Free Patriotic Movement, the Marada Movement and the Tashnag Party raised the special stature of Armenians in Beirut by demanding that the Al-Mudawar area be separated from Bashoura and joined with Ashrafieh, Rmeil and Saifi.
LF MP George Adwan voiced fears that some lawmakers might use the objection of other lawmakers to a new electoral law in order to retain the 1960 system.
MP Alain Aoun from MP Michel Aoun’s FPM linked his party’s agreement to a new electoral law to an interpretation of Article 24 in the Constitution pertaining to equality in parliamentary representation between Muslims and Christians.
Michel Aoun has asked Berri for a Parliament session to interpret Article 24 before discussing any electoral law.
Hezbollah MP Ali Fayyad, a subcommittee member, said his party was dealing seriously with attempts to agree on a new electoral law. But he warned against “selectivity” in addressing the special stature of sects “because it would be difficult then to reach an agreement.”
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