Intensive Top-Level Political Consultations Expected Next Week

The next few weeks will witness intensive consultations, mainly between some political leaders and heads of parliamentary blocs, in a bid to reach consensus over an electoral law, a media report said on Sunday.

An Nahar newspaper attributed the expectations to ministerial sources, who said that the issue of parliamentary elections can have an impact on the domestic situation similar to that of the presidential vote.

“Should no efforts be made from now until September 5, the repercussions of surrender to paralysis would torpedo national dialogue,” the sources added.

Three consecutive days of national dialogue in Ain el-Tineh have failed to make any breakthrough in the current political stalemate, while new reform-related issues have surfaced, such as the creation of a senate and the implementation of administrative decentralization, which both were stipulated by the 1989 Taef Accord.

Speaker Nabih Berri has scheduled a new dialogue session for September 5.

Prior to the consecutive dialogue sessions, Berri had proposed a so-called “package deal” involving parliamentary elections under a new electoral law before electing a new president and forming a new government.

Should the parties fail to agree on a new law, the parliament's current extended term would be curtailed and the elections would be held under the 1960 law which is currently in effect, Berri says.

Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and Hizbullah, MP Michel Aoun's Change and Reform bloc and some of their allies have been boycotting the parliament's electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum.

Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri, who is close to Saudi Arabia, launched an initiative in late 2015 to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency but his proposal was met with reservations from the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah.

The supporters of Aoun's presidential bid argue that he is more eligible than Franjieh to become president due to the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.