Kanaan Says FPM, LF 'Open to Any Electoral Law that Ensures Partnership'

The Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces are “open to the approval of any electoral law that ensures national partnership,” an FPM delegation announced Monday after talks with LF leader Samir Geagea and other LF officials in Maarab.

“The meeting is part of the initiative that the (Change and Reform) bloc has launched regarding the electoral law, which is based on separating the cabinet formation process from the approval of an electoral law,” bloc secretary MP Ibrahim Kanaan announced after the talks.

“There is no possibility for a new extension of the parliament's term and there is also no possibility to return to the 1960 law. The electoral law is essential and strategic to us and this is what we've been hearing from all blocs,” he added.

“Our tour will not be limited to those whom we met today. We will meet with Kataeb, Mustaqbal, the Progressive Socialist Party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and others in order to create a political momentum that can be employed to push for the approval of a law that ensures partnership, democracy and correct representation,” Kanaan went on to say.

He also stressed that contacts with all parliamentary blocs will continue away from the spotlight “in order to reach a final decision.”

“Several proposed electoral laws are being discussed and we're open to any law and any formula that ensures national partnership and equal (Christian-Muslim) power-sharing, things that we were deprived of for 26 years,” Kanaan added.

LF bloc MP Antoine Zahra for his part announced that “it is necessary to maintain efforts in order to reach an electoral law that enjoys a broad political endorsement and approval in parliament.”

“We must not wait for the government formation to pass a new electoral law... The worst thing would be forcing the Lebanese people to choose between holding the elections under the current law or postponing the polls,” Zahra added.

“We want the elections to be held on time in a transparent and impartial manner under a new law, seeing as it is impossible to return to extensions or the 1960 law. That's why we support the efforts that are aimed at passing a modern law,” Zahra went on to say.

The FPM delegation had earlier in the day visited Hizbullah's Loyalty to Resistance bloc.

Caretaker Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq had recently warned that there is not much time left to pass a new electoral law while announcing that the ministry is ready to organize the polls under the 1960 law.

Hizbullah has repeatedly called for an electoral law fully based on proportional representation but other political parties, especially al-Mustaqbal Movement, have rejected the proposal and argued that the party's controversial arsenal of arms would prevent serious competition in regions where the Iran-backed party is influential.

Mustaqbal, the LF and the Progressive Socialist Party have meanwhile proposed a hybrid electoral law that mixes the proportional representation and the winner-takes-all systems. Speaker Nabih Berri has also proposed a hybrid law.

The country has not voted for a parliament since 2009, with the legislature instead twice extending its own mandate.

The 2009 polls were held under an amended version of the 1960 electoral law and the next elections are scheduled for May 2017.