Divisions Allegedly Mar Constitutional Council Decision on Parliament Extension

The Constitutional Council is reportedly divided on challenges made by President Michel Suleiman and MP Michel Aoun's Change and Reform Bloc on the 17-month extension of parliament's mandate.

As Safir daily said Saturday that five Christian members are likely to approve the challenge but five other Muslim members prefer to reject it. The report came despite the secrecy in the council's meetings.

The head of the 10-member council, Issam Suleiman, has completed his report on the two challenges made by the president and the bloc respectively on June 1 and June 3, it said.

The council's by-laws call for holding a meeting for the body's members five days after being handed over the report.

The parliament extended its four-year mandate last month after the rival parties failed to agree on a new electoral law.

The extension delayed the polls until November 2014. But President Suleiman and Aoun's bloc filed separate challenges with the Constitutional Council.

Al-Liwaa daily quoted sources as saying that the council doesn't have the authority to limit the duration of the extension of legislature's tenure which is only done by parliament.

But the council can consider the extension law illegal if it was found that it contained constitutional irregularities.

The 10 members are seeking to issue their decision before the end of the parliament's mandate on June 20 to avoid shoving the country into a vacuum, the sources said.

They told al-Liwaa that in case they approved the challenges, then parliament should meet to agree on holding the elections within a month or two and leave it to the government to oversee the polls.

But caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel told Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) that he needed at least six months to prepare for the elections if the rivals agreed on a new law.