Hussein DakroubHasan Lakkis| The Daily Star

BEIRUT: Speaker Nabih Berri vowed Sunday to proceed with a crucial Parliament meeting this week to pass urgent draft laws, defying a possible boycott by the country’s three leading Christian parties over the exclusion of an electoral draft law from the agenda. Berri’s stance came shortly after Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai threw his weight behind the Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces in their opposition to the Parliament session because it did not include a new electoral draft law on its agenda.

Asked whether he feared a risk of dire political consequences if a legislative session was held in the absence of the major Christian parties, Berri was quoted as saying by visitors at his Ain al-Tineh residence: “Yes, there is a risk, not if the session is held, but if it is not held. If I was given a choice between a dish that causes a disease and another that leads to death, I will definitely choose the first dish.”

Berri, who has called for two legislative sessions Thursday and Friday to endorse urgent draft laws, including the World Bank’s $600 million in soft loans, said he would convene Parliament if the required quorum of 65 lawmakers was secured, whether the main Christian parties attended or not.

Asked if bypassing the National Pact’s stipulations on Muslim-Christian partnership would have consequences, Berri said: “The National Pact’s [requirements] as I understand them according to the Constitution mean the attendance of components from all sects. If an entire sectarian component was absent, like what happened [in 2006] with the Amal Movement and Hezbollah during the government of [former Premier Fouad] Siniora, the National Pact’s [stipulations] would be thwarted. But this does not apply to the legislative session because Christian leaders, such as MP Sleiman Frangieh, others and Christian MPs who belong to various blocs, will attend it. The days are gone when it was said that MPs in remote regions do not represent their sects.”

He added that from now on he would resort to the Constitution in convening Parliament rather than to complying with the requirements of the National Pact. He said he had given enough time for efforts to reach agreement with the main Christian parties, particularly with MP Michel Aoun’s bloc, on the agenda of the two legislative sessions.

Berri said contacts were continuing to reach a solution to the rift over taking an electoral draft law off the agenda. “But the agenda has been drawn up, printed and distributed to the MPs. If there is any new [item], it can be added to the agenda of another session,” he added.

Officials from the FPM and the LF have signaled that their MPs would not attend the first legislative sessions to be held in more than a year, mainly because an electoral draft law was not included on the agenda.

The Kataeb Party has said that amid the 17-month presidential vacuum it will not attend any legislative session before the election of a president. LF chief Samir Geagea will hold a news conference Monday to announce his position on the legislative sessions.

Earlier in the day, Rai voiced support for the FPM and the LF’s stance on boycotting Parliament sessions because an electoral law was not listed on the agenda.

Rai’s stance came a day after talks on the upcoming legislative sessions with Geagea and MP Ibrahim Kanaan, who was delegated by Aoun.

Rai joined Berri and other politicians and economists in warning of an “impending danger” to the country’s monetary and financial stability due to the ongoing political deadlock and called on rival political leaders to attend the legislative sessions to pass the necessary draft laws.

However, he stressed that an electoral draft law and a bill that would grant expatriates of Lebanese origin Lebanese citizenship – two major demands of the FPM and the LF –- should be listed on the agenda.

“We are duty-bound as the Maronite Church to warn of an extremely dangerous matter. We have been informed from relevant financial and economic sides that the growing paralysis in institutions is posing an impending danger to the monetary and financial stability in Lebanon due to Parliament’s failure to elect a president,” Rai said in Sunday’s sermon in Bkirki.

The patriarch criticized the exclusion of an electoral law from the session’s agenda. “Why is the hesitation in approving two draft laws, which are two national demands on which political and parliamentary blocs are insisting such as a new electoral law and an urgent draft law on the restoration of [Lebanese] citizenship?” Rai asked.

Parliamentary sources in the Future Movement said Future MP Samir Jisr would discuss with the FPM and the LF Monday proposals that might lead to a compromise over an electoral draft law.

Kanaan from Aoun’s bloc, who discussed the legislative sessions with Rai over the weekend, said in an interview published by Al-Mustaqbal newspaper Sunday: “The FPM and the LF will decide whether to boycott the session together or participate in it together.”

Geagea, who also met with Rai in Bkirki over the weekend for consultations on the upcoming legislative sessions, criticized the exclusion of an electoral law from the agenda. “A new electoral law and a citizenship law are two important draft laws, and the rest is details,” Geagea told reporters after meeting Rai.

Berri said he had fulfilled a demand by Aoun to include on the session agenda the citizenship draft law and another bill to transfer cellphone revenues to the municipalities.

The 38 draft laws and proposals listed on the agenda as part of what lawmakers dubbed “legislation of necessity” excluded an electoral law proposal, a divisive issue that could torpedo the legislative session.

For his part, MP Walid Jumblatt criticized Christian parliamentary blocs, describing their reported boycott of legislative sessions as “suicide.”

“If some of them haven’t learned from past experiences then it’s a shame, but we will not commit suicide with them,” Jumblatt said in remarks published by An-Nahar newspaper Saturday.