Hamadeh Says Aoun Should Have Signed Election Decree

Education Minister Marwan Hamadeh said if President Michel Aoun had signed the decrees inviting voters for the elections in line with the constitutional deadlines, he would have saved the country from risks of delayed elections, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Wednesday.

“If President Michel Aoun had signed the draft decrees submitted by Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq and calling the electoral bodies to stage elections on their constitutional dates, he would have saved the country from danger,” Hamadeh told the daily in an interview.

In February, Aoun did not ink a decree signed by Mashnouq calling on voters to prepare for the upcoming parliamentary elections in order to avoid the polls being held under the disputed 1960 majoritarian law.

The political parties are bickering over amending the current election law which divides seats among the different religious sects.

A number of law formats were suggested by different parties, but none of them succeeded at garnering approval of all sides.

Touching on Aoun's Tuesday position and that of Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil, Hamadeh said: “I am puzzled. I can't determine the exact position of the (Aoun's) term which highly coincides with the law, and the rhetoric of the Foreign Minister who is again threatening with vacuum.”

On Tuesday, Aoun hinted that he would call for staging the parliamentary polls under the 1960 law to avoid vacuum at the legislative authority.

Head of the Free Patriotic Movement and Aoun's son-in-law, Bassil, warned on Tuesday that “those who try to prevent the FPM from passing a new electoral law will bear the responsibility for vacuum” at the legislative authority.

The current parliament has failed to amend the law, and has extended its mandate twice amid criticism.

New elections were supposed to be held in May 2017.