Saniora, Geagea Agree that Hybrid Electoral Law Best 'at the Moment'

Head of the Mustaqbal bloc MP Fouad Saniora and Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea stressed on Wednesday the need to hold the parliamentary elections on time, announced the LF in a statement Thursday.

It said that the two officials agreed that the “best electoral law at the moment is a hybrid law” that combines the winner-takes-all and proportional representation systems.

Saniora informed Geagea of the details of the ongoing discussions between the Mustaqbal Movement and the Progressive Socialist Party over the electoral law, as well as recent contacts held with Speaker Nabih Berri.

Fir his part, Geagea informed the gatherers of the contacts the LF is carrying out over a new electoral law.

“The gatherers stressed the need to continued hour-by-hour contacts in order to reach, within the next few days, a solution to all obstacles that are still hindering an agreement over a new law,” said the LF statement.

Media reports said Thursday that the March 14 opposition alliance and the PSP had agreed on allows the elections to take place in 26 districts based on the winner-takes-all system and 9 governorates based on proportionality.

Informed political and Mustaqbal bloc sources told several newspapers that the hybrid formula will be announced within the coming days.

Under the deal, 70 lawmakers would be chosen through the winner-takes-all system and 58 through proportionality based on a division of 26 districts for the first system and 9 governorates for the second.

On Wednesday, PSP leader MP Walid Jumblat had announced after talks with Berri that “no elections will be held until consensus over an electoral law is reached”.

He added: “We must jointly agree on a hybrid formula that ends the contradiction between the 1960 law and the Orthodox Gathering's proposal”.

The polls are likely to be postponed if the parliament gives the green light to the Orthodox Gathering proposal, which calls for dividing Lebanon into a single district and allows each sect to vote for its own MPs under a proportional representation system.

The draft-law has been rejected by President Michel Suleiman, Premier Najib Miqati, the Mustaqbal bloc, Jumblat, and the March 14 opposition’s Christian independent MPs.