Fneish, one of two Hezbollah ministers in the
Cabinet, said deliberations over the past three weeks have focused on
budget provisions and allocations for each ministry amid demands by some
ministers for increased budgets. Cabinet is set to meet under Prime Minister Saad Hariri at the Grand Serail at 4 p.m. Monday to wind up discussions on the 2017 draft budget and approve the country’s long-awaited fiscal plan for the first time in 12 years. However,
the Cabinet’s deliberations have not touched on the public sector’s
salary scale bill that were examined and approved by joint parliamentary
committees last Thursday. The bill has been referred to Parliament’s
general assembly for final ratification. The committees’ discussions
focused on the cost of the salary scale bill, revenues and proposed
taxes to cover it. Speaker Nabih Berri has called for a
legislative session at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday to discuss and approve a
raft of draft laws and proposals, including the salary scale motion.

The Parliament session on the salary scale bill comes amid escalating protests
by lawmakers, labor unions, banks and private businesses against a
string of taxes proposed by Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil to cover
the cost of the bill, estimated at LL1.2 trillion ($800 million). It
also comes amid frustration expressed by some teachers’ unions over
what they viewed as low salary increases proposed in the bill that fell
short of their expectations.

Government secondary school teachers
last Friday began an open-ended strike in all government schools to
protest what they called a “disregard of teachers’ rights.”

Lebanon
has not ratified a state budget since 2005 due to political bickering
between rivals, leading to uncontrolled extra-budgetary spending in the
billions of dollars. Parliament’s final ratification of the 2017 draft
budget is seen as pivotal for controlling state finances and shoring up
the battered economy, burdened by a more than $74 billion in public
debt. Once the Cabinet has endorsed the draft budget and sent it to
Parliament, it will shift its attention to the more sensitive and thorny
issue of drafting a new electoral law amid sharp differences between
rivals over which voting system to adopt for the parliamentary polls,
slated for May 21.

Bassil stressed that a new vote law is the key
to the launching of political reforms in Lebanon. He promised to unveil a
new hybrid electoral law Monday. “One of the FPM’s top priorities is
that there can be no political reforms without a new and modern
electoral law. The FPM will launch a new initiative in this respect
tomorrow [Monday],” Bassil said in a speech at the FPM’s second annual
convention at Beirut’s BIEL complex Sunday.

Bassil rejected
accusations by his political opponents that he was seeking to forge an
electoral law to serve the FPM’s interests.

“There is no electoral
law for the benefit of the FPM leader. There is no electoral alliance
for the benefit of the FPM leader,” he said.

Bassil,
who has been involved in behind-the-scene consultations with Khalil
from the Amal Movement, and Nader Hariri, chief of the prime minister’s
staff, did not disclose details of his new vote proposal.

However,
MP Alain Aoun from the FPM said Bassil’s talks with Khalil and Nader
Hariri have centered on a hybrid vote formula that combines provisions
of the proportional and winner-take-all systems.

While the parties
are open to Bassil’s new proposal, he warned that if only one faction –
a clear allusion to MP Walid Jumblatt’s bloc – rejected it, this would
derail agreement on a new vote law to govern the upcoming elections.

“We
might feel that we are close to an understanding [on a vote law] after
all other formulas have collapsed. Preliminary indications are not
entirely positive because one group might not support the [proposed] law
and subsequently, reaching an agreement on an [electoral] law would be
scuttled,” Aoun said in an interview with MTV.

Bassil said last
month that the FPM would suggest a new hybrid electoral law after his
two previous proposals had been rejected by Jumblatt’s bloc and other
groups.

Jumblatt’s bloc has spearheaded a fierce campaign against
Bassil’s proposal, which calls for electing a part of parliamentary
seats under a majoritarian system and another part under a proportional
vote law.

In what appeared to be a response to Bassil’s
to-be-announced vote proposal, Jumblatt, who has publicly rejected a
proportional vote law, tweeted Sunday: “Clarity is the best thing. Yes
to proportionality that has a minimum of partnership, and No to
proportionality that sets the stage for divorce and isolation. Enough
being witty. We are very patient.”

Fneish reiterated Hezbollah’s
support for complete proportionality in any vote law with Lebanon
declared as a single constituency or expanded districts. “We are open to
any vote law that ensures just representation to all the parties,” he
said.

Khalil, the finance minister, said the Amal Movement was
keen to respond favorably to proposals aimed at endorsing a new
electoral law.

“We are very late in endorsing this [electoral]
law. We definitely reject a return to the 1960 law in the same degree we
reject vacuum in Parliament,” Khalil told a ceremony honoring teachers
in the southern town of Taibeh.

“We are very keen on responding
favorably to all proposals made to endorse a new electoral law. An
electoral law based on proportionality with Lebanon as a single
electoral constituency is the best law.”

For his part, Maronite
Patriarch Beshara Rai urged Parliament to “enact a new law for elections
based on real parity and just and comprehensive representation in line
with the president’s desire.”

Speaking in Sunday’s sermon at his
seat in Bkirki, north of Beirut, Rai also called for the endorsement of
“a state budget whose revenues are extracted from the treasury’s
squandered and stolen money, rather than from the imposition of
additional taxes and dues on the economically exhausted people.”

By Hussein Dakroub