Report: FPM Delays Endorsement of Committee Overseeing Parliamentary Elections
Free Patriotic Movement is allegedly behind the delay in publishing in the official gazette a cabinet decree on appointment of members of the committee that will oversee the upcoming parliamentary elections.
According to An Nahar newspaper the FPM rejected during Thursday's cabinet session the appointment of several members without naming replacements, thus refusing to sign the decree.
The newspaper that Friday was the deadline for the appointment decree to be endorsed by the government, which should have been placed in effect last month.
Sources told the daily that Education Minister Elias Bou Saab, who is affiliated to the FPM, voiced disagreement on the names of Christians appointed in the committee, prompting Prime Minister Tammam Salam to demand him to propose by Friday morning substitutes in order to include the decree in the official gazette.
But Bou Saab didn't suggest any names.
An Nahar reported that the development comes in light of an agreement between FPM leader Michel Aoun and Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to extend the tenure of the parliament.
On Thursday, the cabinet appointed the members of the committee that will oversee the upcoming parliamentary elections, naming ex-judge Nadim Abdul Malak as its head.
Media reports said that the Progressive Socialist Party and the March 14 MPs will submit their nominations, while Speaker Nabih Berri and his Development and Liberation parliamentary bloc had already submitted their candidacies for the polls last week.
Differences have loomed to the surface among the members of the March 14 coalition over holding the polls in light of the vacuum in the presidency.
Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq issued a memo last week detailing the documents needed for those seeking to run in the elections on November 16.
The memo was based on a decree that he issued last month, calling on the electoral bodies to elect lawmakers.
It stated that nominations will be accepted from August 28 to September 16.
Last year, the rival MPs extended their tenure until November 2014 after they failed to agree on a new electoral draft-law.
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