Administration and Justice Committee Completes Draft Electoral Law
Parliament’s Administration and Justice Committee ended its study of the new electoral law on Wednesday. Committee Chairman MP Robert Ghanem said that he would hand the final draft of the law to Speaker Nabih Berri later in the day. Ghanem thanked Interior Minister Ziad Baroud for his help, as well as all those who contributed to drafting the law.
Ghanem said that the committee had achieved a basic step toward developing the country’s electoral laws. However, he added that the step was not the one the people of Lebanon were most interested in because “the current conditions…do not allow us to enter into inapplicable reforms so work was limited to applicable reforms until after the elections.”
Ghanem said that the elections would take place in one or, at most, two days. He said there would be one day of voting unless security forces or employees were not able to complete their work within the given timeframe. He said that if it required a huge amount of work, the elections might be held in two days pursuant to a decision by the cabinet. Ghanem said that the issue of requiring municipality presidents to resign from office six months before running for a seat in parliament had been left to parliament to decide.