Qaouq Says Lebanon Facing 'Unknown' Due to Failure to Agree on Electoral Law
Hizbullah central council official Sheikh Nabil Qaouq warned Sunday that the failure to agree on a new electoral law has started to pose risks and an “unknown” future for the country.
“This is due to some parties' monopolization of unfair parliamentary representation and their rejection of equal (Christian-Muslim) power-sharing, partnership and real representation,” Qaouq said.
“There is no solution to the parliamentary elections dilemma other than agreeing on a new electoral law, because the deformed 1960 law is aggrieving the Lebanese and disorienting the Taef Accord,” the Hizbullah official added.
“Hizbullah's stance is the same behind closed doors and in public: the rejection of the 1960 law, extension and vacuum, and calling for a new law that ensures correct and fair representation,” Qaouq went on to say.
The country has not organized parliamentary elections since 2009 and the legislature has since extended its own mandate twice.
While al-Mustaqbal Movement has rejected that the electoral law be fully based on the proportional representation system, arguing that Hizbullah's arms would prevent serious competition in the party's strongholds, Druze leader MP Walid Jumblat has totally rejected proportional representation, even within a hybrid law, warning that it would “marginalize” the minority Druze community.
The political parties are meanwhile discussing several formats of a so-called hybrid law that mixes proportional representation with the winner-takes-all system.
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