FPM Challenges Parliament's Term Extension before Constitutional Council
The Free Patriotic Movement submitted on Thursday a challenge before the Constitutional Council over the parliament's new term extension.
Change and Reform bloc secretary and FPM member MP Ibrahim Kanaan presented the challenge.
Kanaan called on citizens “not to lose faith in state institutions during the darkest times.”
He pointed out that democracy means the staging of elections and rotation of power, demanding the Constitutional Council to issue a decision based on the constitution and that serves the nations interests.
Al-Joumhouria newspaper reported earlier on Thursday that the FPM, led by FPM chief Michel Aoun and affiliated to the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc, prepared a thirty-page document explaining the reasons behind the challenge.
Sources close to the FPM criticized in comments to the newspaper those who are saying that the “challenge is merely a formal step that will not change anything.”
“We regret that referring to the Constitutional Council in Lebanon became a formality... which indicates the extent of corruption in the state and its institutions.”
The sources demanded the council to prove to skeptics and all the Lebanese that the state still exists.
On Wednesday, President of the Constitutional Council Issam Suleiman stressed that members of the council will deal with any challenge against the extension of the parliament's mandate according to norms.
The Constitutional Council failed to meet in 2013 to discuss a challenge by the Free Patriotic Movement due to the absence of members close to Speaker Nabih Berri and Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat, who both backed the extension.
The FPM had challenged the first tenure extension in June 2013 before the Constitutional Council and vowed to challenge the latest extension after lawmakers agreed to extend in a speedy session legislature's mandate until 2017.
The extension decision was met by a huge popular dismay. It was boycotted by FPM chief Aoun's lawmakers and the Kataeb party, which is affiliated to the March 14 alliance.
Media reports said recently that lawmakers loyal to the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc, which is comprised of the Tashnag party, Marada movement and the FPM, would join FPM chief Aoun's party in challenging the extension.
Marada MPs had voted in favor of the extension, while Tashnag lawmakers had rejected it.
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