Electoral Draft-Law Back to Forefront of Discussions Amid Race against Time

President Michel Suleiman is scheduled to hold talks with Premier Najib Miqati and Interior Minister Marwan Charbel on Saturday to discuss the electoral draft-law a year before the parliamentary polls.

The meeting was set for Saturday after Charbel asked the cabinet during its latest session to set its stance on the draft-law proposed by him and avoid procrastination, An Nahar daily said.

The minister told the newspaper that the conferees “should know whether we will adopt the proportional representation, half proportionality, create a single district or allow each sect to choose its own representatives.”

“This is a huge workshop that needs preparations that require at least a year to complete so that the elections could succeed,” he said.

Charbel also said that security preparations require at least a year over the situation in Syria which would affect Lebanon. “But if the Syrian crisis is over … then we could go back to the experience of 2009 whereby we would need six months of preparations.”

The minister’s remarks came as Suleiman told As Safir newspaper that the government would resume discussions of the parliamentary draft-law within two weeks.

Asked about the stance of Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on the draft, the president said that the head of the church does not reject any decision taken by him.

Al-Rahi “is not against proportionality,” Suleiman told As Safir, stressing that the new law should end sectarian polarization.

Asked about the decentralization draft-law, Suleiman said: “I am ready to put it for discussion … There is nothing wrong with discussing in parallel the electoral and decentralization laws.”