Suleiman Rejects Granting Blocking Third to Any Side, Stresses Elections Will Be Held

President Michel Suleiman rejected on Wednesday granting the blocking third to any party, expressing reservations over the rejection of adopting rotational portfolios in the formation of cabinet.

“If the government included a blocking third it might reject the formation of a special committee in charge of overseeing the parliamentary elections and thus postpone further the polls,” Suleiman said in an interview with An Nahar newspaper.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati announced his resignation in March after a cabinet session in which he failed to pass the formation of the committee to oversee the elections.

The president expressed optimism over Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam's formation process.

Salam has previously announced that he wants to form a 24-member government with rotational portfolios. He has also rejected having electoral candidates in the executive authority whose only mission would be the supervision of the parliamentary elections.

Suleiman considered in comments to An Nahar that Lebanon is passing through a “delicate and difficult situation.”

He also stressed the importance of carrying out the parliamentary elections, saying: “whatever was the electoral law that the law makers will invent, elections will be held.”

The president vowed to challenge any draft-law that states the extension of the current parliament's term “unless it sets the date of the polls and the adopted electoral law.”

Speaker Nabih Berri had granted political blocs until May 15 to reach an agreement over a new electoral law before calling parliament to session to vote on the Orthodox Gathering proposal that was approved by the joint parliamentary committees.

Suleiman, Miqati, Progressive Socialist Party MP Walid Jumblat's National Struggle Front, the Mustaqbal Movement, and independent March 14 MPs have rejected the law, saying that it deepens sectarian divisions in Lebanon.

The political powers have so far failed to reach an agreement on an alternative law, threatening to postpone the parliamentary elections that are scheduled for June 16.