Change and Reform Rejects 1960 Law, Urges Respecting 'Christian Component' in Presidential Vote
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربيةThe Change and Reform parliamentary bloc led by MP Michel Aoun vowed Tuesday that it will confront “any attempt to go back to the 1960 electoral law,” while calling for respecting what it called the country's “Christian component” in the presidential elections.
“The electoral law is about representing all Lebanese in state institutions in a fair manner, the thing that has not happened since the Taef Accord was endorsed,” MP Ibrahim Kanaan said after the bloc's weekly meeting in Rabieh.
“This issue must be addressed in a serious manner and we want proper representation. We will attend the joint committees' session to follow up on the issue and we will confront any attempt to waste time with the aim of going back to the 1960 law,” he pledged.
“Nothing prevents holding the parliamentary elections... Parliamentary elections are a constitutional and democratic duty,” added Kanaan.
He also called for “respecting the National Pact” and “taking the viewpoint of Christians into consideration” in the parliamentary debate over the electoral law on Wednesday and in the presidential election session that will be held on Thursday.
Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014 due to the rival parties' failure to agree on a candidate and ex-PM Saad Hariri launched late in 2015 a proposal to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the country's top Christian post.
His initiative was however met with rejection and reservations from the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah, which is clinging to the nomination of Change and Reform bloc chief MP Michel Aoun.
Change and Reform and Hizbullah, as well as March 14's Lebanese Forces, argue that Aoun is more eligible than Franjieh to become president given the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.
Turning to the municipal polls that were held between May 8 and May 29, Kanaan said the results of the vote “proved that the Free Patriotic Movement and its allies, especially the Lebanese Forces, are present across all Lebanese regions.”
“We achieved clear results in the municipal elections in Zahle, Jounieh, Hadath, Jezzine, Metn, Jbeil, Batroun and Akkar,” he said, dismissing the electoral losses of the FPM-LF alliance in Akkar's Qoubaiyat and Batroun's Tannourine.
“The elections experience was good in its results and it unveiled many things to us that we will take into consideration in any upcoming elections,” Kanaan added.
“Our objective is to establish our presence in state administrations and on Lebanon's developmental map. This experience returns us to the State and returns the State to us,” he went on to say.
Y.R.
المرشحة المسيحية على لائحة ريفي ترد على المحرضين
ردت المرشحة الارثوذكسية على لائحة “قرار طرابلس” المدعومة من اللواء أشرف ريفي السيدة فرح عيسى على المحرضين على غياب التمثيل المسيحي والعلوي عن المجلس البلدي الجديد لطرابلس حيث أعلنت أنها تلقت أصواتً أكثر من الأصوات التي حصل عليها مرشح “الجماعة الإسلامية” في المدينة.
http://www.lebanese-forces.com/2016/05/31/christian-candidate/