Constitutional Council suspends law extending municipalities' term

The Constitutional Council has issued a ruling suspending the implementation of the law that extended municipalities’ term, media reports said.

The Council will “study the filed appeals and issue its final ruling in the coming weeks, knowing that the term of municipalities will expire at the end of May,” MTV reported.

The Kataeb bloc, the Tajaddod bloc and Change MPs had filed Friday an appeal against the law, a day after a delegation from the Lebanese Forces bloc appealed against the same law.

Earlier this month, Parliament voted to extend the terms of local officials, paving the way to postpone municipal elections for up to a year for a second time.

Lebanon’s municipal elections were originally slated for May last year but were postponed for a year because they coincided with parliamentary elections, which brought in a dozen reformist lawmakers running on anti-establishment platforms.

Opposition and reformist groups would likely continue this momentum and win additional seats if local elections were held, as living conditions across the country continue to deteriorate. They have called for municipal elections to take place as planned in May, and most have boycotted the parliament session in which the law was passed.