BEIRUT: Lawmakers will meet next week to vote on the extension of Parliament’s mandate for more than two years, despite opposition by the country’s major Christian parties.
Speaker Nabih Berri, meanwhile, warned that the session would not be held unless some of the key Christian blocs participated in the vote on the extension of Parliament’s term.
Berri Thursday scheduled a legislative session for Nov. 5 “to discuss and approve draft laws listed on the agenda, including an urgent draft law to extend Parliament’s current mandate, which expires on Nov. 20, 2014, to June 20, 2017,” according to a statement from Berri’s office.
During the parliamentary session, likely to be boycotted by the Kataeb Party MPs who oppose the extension, lawmakers would debate and endorse a draft proposal presented by Zahle MP Nicolas Fattoush that calls for the extension of Parliament’s term for two years and seven months.
Berri, according to visitors, said next Wednesday’s session would discuss a raft of draft laws, the most important of which are two bills that call for “a technical extension through the suspension of an electoral law deadline for a limited period and a long-term extension” of Parliament’s term.
“Constitutional partnership is not represented only in attending [Wednesday’s] session, because a quorum is already secured. Constitutional partnership is participation in decision-making and consequently, the constitutionality of the session depends on Christian participation in voting on the draft proposal to extend Parliament’s mandate,” Berri was quoted as saying by visitors.
He warned that if major Christian blocs representing what he termed the “Christian nerve” – namely MP Michel Aoun’s Change and Reform bloc, the Lebanese Forces bloc, the Kataeb Party bloc and MP Sleiman Frangieh’s bloc – did not attend, the session would not be held.
“If the Christian nerve is not present in the session during the voting, the session will be in jeopardy and I will speak out then,” Berri said.
The major Christian parties, Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, the Kataeb Party and the LF, have spoken out against the extension, but it is unlikely that their members will boycott the session.
MP Salim Salhab, from Aoun’s bloc, told the Central News Agency that the bloc would decide at its weekly meeting next Tuesday on whether it would attend the session and vote against the extension bill, or not attend the session at all.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet declared Tripoli’s Bab al-Tabbaneh neighborhood a “disaster-stricken area” following the weekend clashes and allocated $20 million in compensation and reconstruction projects.
“The Cabinet allocated LL30 billion ($20 million) for immediate compensation of citizens and for rehabilitation of damaged neighborhoods,” Information Minister Ramzi Joreige told reporters after an eight-hour session chaired by Prime Minister Tammam Salam.
The Cabinet tasked the Council of Development and Reconstruction to prepare criteria to call for new tenders to organize street cleaning in Beirut and Mount Lebanon.
“[The Cabinet also tasked the council] with administering tenders to produce energy from gas emanating from the Naameh landfill and produce energy,” Joreige said.
Sources following up on the Cabinet session said the Cabinet had allocated around LL700 billion to pay public sector salaries, after months of dispute among various groups.
After the Cabinet session, Salam met with a delegation from the families of the kidnapped servicemen.