by Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer – gulf news

Beirut: A few days after Lebanon President Michel Aoun suspended all
parliamentary activities for a month, the publicly lauded but privately
condemned decision garnered fresh controversies, as Speaker Nabih Berri
hailed the Maronite Patriarch Mar Bisharal Al Rai’s latest position on
the electoral law. The powerful patriarch considered the
controversial 1960 electoral law as the best available alternative to
resolve the country’s ongoing political crisis, and prevent granting
another extension to the present parliament.

Berri criticised the
latest hybrid electoral law format proposed by Free Patriotic Movement
chief Gibran Bassil, who has asked his ally Lebanese Forces (LF) leader
Samir Geagea to give it a “chance”, after the LF and Druze leader Walid
Jumblatt voiced reservations about it. Jumblatt lashed out at the
proposal, which involves sectarian voting in the first round, as
“divisive” and the product of a “sick mentality”. A similar idea was
initially proposed by Nabih Berri several months ago, but it was no
longer deemed useful.

The latest proposal regarding the electoral
law would see voting taking place in the current 26 districts with
voters only allowed to vote for candidates from their own sects. Two
candidates for each sectarian seat would thus qualify for the second
round during which voting would take place in 10 newly-defined electoral
districts and according to a non-sectarian proportional representation
polling system.

Hezbollah and Amal (the Speaker’s party) continue
to insist on full proportional representation, although Cardinal Al
Rai’s latest pronouncements that was deemed to be “rational” by the
Speaker, reiterated that the only available alternative to extension, is
the re-endorsement of the 1960 law. “When the patriarch says that the
1960 law is the alternative to the parliament extension, this means that
it is also an alternative to political vacuum,” clarified Berri, who
further said that “a law [can] only be annulled through another law”.