Geagea: Opposition to Call for Voting on Electoral Draft-Law if Subcommittee Meetings Fail

Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea said Saturday that the March 14 alliance will call for a parliamentary session to vote on an electoral law if a subcommittee failed to reach an agreement by the end of January.

In an interview with French-language newspaper L'Orient Le Jour, Geagea said: “The aim of March 14 it to agree on a final and consensual version of an electoral law by the end of January.”

“But if the parliamentary subcommittee tasked with studying the electoral law failed to reach any solution, then we will ask Speaker Nabih Berri to invite to a parliamentary session to vote on the proposals,” he said.

The subcommittee is scheduled to hold intensive meetings starting Tuesday to discuss the electoral system and the number of districts. Its opposition members have agreed to stay at a hotel near parliament to attend the meetings after they expressed fears for their lives over death threats.

The opposition, which had boycotted all government-related activity after the Oct. 19 assassination of Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau chief Wissam al-Hasan, said last month that it was only willing to attend the meetings of the subcommittee out of its keenness to hold the elections on time.

But Geagea did not clarify how the opposition MPs would be present at a parliamentary session that is also attended by members of the cabinet, which has proposed an electoral draft-law that divides Lebanon into 13 districts and is based on proportionality.

The bill has been rejected by the March 14 alliance and the Progressive Socialist Party of MP Walid Jumblat.

The opposition has instead drafted a law that divides Lebanon into 50 small-sized districts under a winner-takes-all system.

Hizbullah, the Amal Movement and MP Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement that make up the majority of parliament have rejected any attempt to hold the elections based on the winner-takes-all system of the 1960 law.

And instead Aoun has supported a proposal put forward by the Orthodox Gathering which calls for every sect to elect its own MPs under proportional representation, which is also rejected by March 14.

“The best draft-law is that of 50 districts,” Geagea told L'Orient Le Jour.

When asked whether he was given the choice of the 1960 law or the so-called proposal of the Butros Committee, the LF chief said he would go ahead with the suggestion to draft a law that is based on both the winner-takes-all and proportional systems.