Al-Rahi: It's Shameful that Politicians Have Been Incapable of Approving New Electoral Law
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi criticized on Thursday the political authority in Lebanon for failing to approve a new parliamentary electoral law, reported the National News Agency.
He said before a delegation from the Bekaa city of Zahleh: “It is shameful that the politicians have been incapable of reaching an agreement over a new law.”
“The elections are expected to be held this year and the Lebanese people are in need of a law that meets their aspirations,” he stressed.
The government approved in August an electoral law based on proportional representation and 13 districts.
It was rejected by the March 14-led opposition and Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat.
The parliamentary subcommittee aimed at discussing the law is scheduled to convene on Tuesday in order to continue studying a new proposal.
Commenting on the Syrian crisis, al-Rahi remarked: “The refugees flooding Lebanon is the country's greatest humanitarian, social, and national problem.”
“Lebanon should remain neutral and a meeting point for Muslims and Christians,” added the patriarch.
“Lebanon is a source of peace, not war and weapons,” he continued.
On this note, he said that officials “are required to return to the national dialogue,” hoping that peace and security would return to Lebanon and the Middle East.
Over 60,000 people have been killed since the eruption of anti-regime protests in Syria in March 2011, announced the United Nations on Wednesday.
A number of Syrians and Palestinians have since fled the unrest to neighboring countries.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in December, 170,637 Syrian refugees have been registered in Lebanon.
Some 10,000 Palestinian refugees have also poured into Lebanon since regime forces targeted the Yarmuk refugee camp in Syria.
03 January 2013, 11:17
24
M8 law also happens to swallow Saida into a larger "South" district as well as trying to remove Christian M14 power bases from the electoral equation, come up with a law that isn't retarded before you talk about M14.
03 January 2013, 14:13
12
The law is retarded and useless because every district is literally based on breaking up middle Lebanon into strategic areas that will garner majority for Aoun. And, like I said, adding Saida with the rest of the south so that the city loses any representation whatsoever and absorbed into the HA constituency.
03 January 2013, 14:17
12
That said, Lebanon isn't ready for a proportional representation because 50% of the population don't even pay for public services and thus don't deserve to vote in elections.
In fact 90% of the tourists who come to Lebanon come for Ras Beirut/Achrafieh areas, and these places also happen to have the best hospitals, universities, etc. etc. in all of Lebanon.
Why should we give up the 1960 law and let a bunch of uneducated overly religious idiots control our country? I'd rather have partition.
03 January 2013, 14:37
02
I am aware of the sectarian nature of the 1960 law, and I am also aware of the sectarian nature of your proportional representation law which seeks to capitalize on the current demographic situation of the Shia, thus making up for all the Christian votes you lost since you took control in 2011.
If you truly want a law that is fair and proportionally representative, why don't you suggest a law that gives Shia 50% of parliament representation? You realize of course that with religious quotients, using the term "proportional representation" is a misnomer, right?
03 January 2013, 11:31
04
M14 refused it ya FT because the expats will have 2 MPs and in one district , so please cut the crap , i want to vote in MAtn the same way the kesserwenei want to vote in kesserwen , something you cant understand ! and for the 15 millions expats you get 2 MP's is this a joke or what ? depriving what ? if those are what we will get becasue the saints in M8 thought of us la2 habibei i dont want to be represented and i guess most of the expats dont want that either !
03 January 2013, 13:23
14
I wonder what M8 is trying to do? No matter what it may want to do, M8 is now doomed. Let us consider that it wins the elections, which I very much doubt these days, but let's say it did, when the Al Assad regime is ousted which looks set for the first quarter of this year or a little later, M8 will lose that crucial support base it received from Syria for so many years. So with Al Assad gone, his Baathist party gone, doesn't M8 think that here too in Lebanon it will be swept in just that same manner and way that it swept M14 from power? Illegally of course.
03 January 2013, 16:07
01
Hi FT. About hinging my calculations on Al Assad's demise, there's not much choice since he and his late father Hafez played a highly influential role in the region (bad or good depends on who is reading this), not least our country. We therefore can't play down the general expectations associated to this dynamics. Now what may happen or not thereafter will depend on us Lebanese, how mature we could handle the unavoidable changes. I do not see it as anyone wanting to eliminate the other, but rather on how we are wise enough to mutually accommodate each other. For some reasons, lately I have come to find some faith in this belatedly maturing democracy, which now looks to be slowly but gradually coming of age. Take care bro FT.
03 January 2013, 21:48
00
stick to religion instead of meddling with politics... people like you are the root of lebanese problems...
