Lebanon moves closer to elections

BEIRUT // Lebanon’s cabinet yesterday approved a new voting law after years of deadlock and indecision.

The move brought the country a step closer to its first parlia- mentary elections since 2009.

The law, which changes Lebanon’s voting system from one based on seats reserved for religious sects to proportional representation, will be put to a vote in parliament tomorrow.

Politicians have indicated that the law will pass.

But it also comes with a cab- inet agreement to extend parliament’s term for another 11 months from June 20, to arrange the elections.

That extension would be the parliament’s third since 2013, when its members’ terms first expired.

Previous extensions were justified by parliament members as necessary because of the instability caused by the Syrian civil war, and later Lebanon’s lack of a president.

Elections were scheduled for last month but with legislators unable to agree on a voting law, Lebanon drifted towards a political vacuum.

Activists and some parliamentarians have called the extensions illegal.

They have warned that Lebanon’s lack of parliamentary elections meant that the country was becoming increasingly undemocratic.

You Stink, a prominent activist group behind a protest movement that crippled downtown Beirut in 2015, called for protests yesterday as news of the parliamentary extension came in.

Supporters of the draft law say that an extension is the only way Lebanon can hold elections under a voting system that is very different to the one under which the last polls were held.

“The extension to which we will resort is only technical and necessary for setting the mechanisms that guarantee a modern and transparent election,” said prime minister Saad Hariri, who leads the Sunni-backed Future Movement.

Lebanese president Michel Aoun yesterday acknowledged that the new law may not be fair to everybody.

“We may not be able to achieve totally fair representation but this formula is certainly a step forward,” Mr Aoun said.