Jumblat Meets Aides of Berri, Nasrallah; Reiterates Rejection of Proportionality

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Thursday firmly reiterated his rejection of an electoral law based on the proportional representation system.

“I don’t want any type of proportionality and that’s all,” Jumblat told al-Manar television, ahead of a meeting at his residence with Speaker Nabih Berri’s aide, Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, and Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s aide, Hussein Khalil.

As the Druze leader stressed that there is no reason to postpone the 2013 parliamentary elections, he noted that any law based on proportionality would be aimed at slashing the size of his parliamentary bloc.

In a bid to appease Jumblat, Berri has recently proposed adopting an electoral law based on proportional representation and a single electorate simultaneously with creating a Druze-led senate.

Separately, Jumblat said international envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan for Syria reached a dead end, stressing that “the only solution is (President Bashar) Assad’s ouster.”