Berri Angered by Christian Decision to Boycott Parliamentary Session
Speaker Nabih Berri called on the rival Christian parties to reconsider their stance regarding an upcoming parliamentary session to endorse draft-laws.
“I have carried out my duties... we prepared the session's agenda... I am waiting for everyone to reconsider their stances, as I will not contact anyone anymore and will not discuss it,” Berri stressed in comments published in local newspapers on Friday.
He called on the concerned parties to reconsider their “stances and conscience.”
“I will not call for a parliamentary session anymore after the Free Patriotic Movement joined the Kataeb and Lebanese Forces parties in their decision to boycott it... It will be unconstitutional,” Berri said.
He pointed out that he is not “carrying out a maneuver regarding his will to demand the dissolving of the assembly once a new head of state is elected... let them test me.”
The speaker has been recently annoyed with the Christian parliamentary blocs' decision to boycott a session that he intends to call for to approve urgent issues, including the wage scale for the public sector and the food safety draft-law.
The LF and its old-time rival the FPM will boycott the session over the agenda. The LF is calling for the adoption of a new electoral law, while the FPM wants the amendment of the defense law.
On the other hand, the Kataeb party rejects to attend the session as the “parliament should be only considered as an electoral body and not a legislature” in the absence of a president.
“I have agreed to urgent legislating to preserve the nation's best interest although there's no such thing... I made compromises,” Berri said.
He remarked that the parliament can convene despite the presidential vacuum, stressing that he “will not offer further settlements.”
Berri has been threatening to dissolve the parliament to press lawmakers to carry out their Constitutional duties during the assembly's ordinary session, despite his knowledge that such a move is impossible amid the presidential vacuum.
Parliament convenes twice a year in two ordinary sessions -- the first starts mid-March until the end of May and the second from the middle of October through the end of December.
Vacuum striking the presidential post is having a tough impact on the cabinet and the parliament as the state is threatened with further crises over ongoing rows between the rival parties.
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