Berri Warns: No One Can Paralyze Parliament

Speaker Nabih Berri stressed that no side could prevent the parliament from legislating, warning that he could call for a session within 24 hours, which would enjoy the necessary quorum.

“I can call for a parliamentary session within 24 hours and more than 70 lawmakers, from all the Lebanese spectrum, including those who are threatening to boycott, would attend,” Berri's visitors quoted him as saying in comments published in al-Joumhouria newspaper on Monday.

However, the speaker stressed that he will not make such a move as he takes into consideration the Maronite stance and the National Pact, calling on those who are boycotting to back down on their stance.

“They should abide by the norms of legislation,” he pointed out.

“No one will be able to paralyze the parliament.”

The speaker has been recently annoyed with the Christian parliamentary blocs' decision to boycott a session that he intends to call for to approve urgent issues, including the wage scale for the public sector and the food safety draft-law.

The Lebanese Forces and its old-time rival the Free Patriotic Movement will boycott the session over the agenda, while the Kataeb party rejects to attend the session as the “parliament should be only considered as an electoral body and not a legislature” in the absence of a president.

Berri has been threatening to dissolve the parliament to press lawmakers to carry out their Constitutional duties during the assembly's ordinary session, despite his knowledge that such a move is impossible amid the presidential vacuum.

Parliament convenes twice a year in two ordinary sessions -- the first starts mid-March until the end of May and the second from the middle of October through the end of December.

The vacuum striking the presidential post is having a tough impact on the cabinet and the parliament as the state is threatened with further crises over ongoing rows between the rival parties.

H.K.

G.K.