Geagea lashes out anew at Berri over legislative session

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday blasted Speaker Nabih Berri again over the issue of the latter’s refusal to put a bill allowing expats to vote on the agenda of Tuesday’s legislative session.

“What Speaker Berri is doing represents a blatant violation of the constitution’s rules and (parliament’s) bylaws and an attack on the rights of the parliamentary majority, which is no longer acceptable,” Geagea said.

“The majority of the Lebanese are looking forward to the rise of an actual that is not impeded by the presence of illegitimate weapons nor by such practices that overlook the constitution, the laws, the norms and the will of the parliamentary majority,” Geagea added.

“Accordingly, I call on all MPs, from the various political affiliations, not to attend the session that Speaker Berri has scheduled for tomorrow in order to express general dismay over the manner in which he is running parliament’s affairs,” the LF leader urged.

The LF and its allies are seeking to pass an amendment that would allow expats to vote again abroad for all 128 MPs, each according to their registered electoral district.

Expats had voted heavily in favor of the LF and the so-called Change candidates during the 2018 and 2022 parliamentary elections. Hezbollah and the Amal Movement currently argue that they do not enjoy the same campaigning freedom that the other parties enjoy abroad and are accordingly calling for limiting expat voting to six newly-introduced seat, as per the 2017 electoral law, or for calling off expat voting altogether.

It is still unclear how voting for the six seats would take place seeing as there is no clear mechanism distributing the seats on sects and continents, although that can be resolved through executive decrees issued by the government or an amendment of the electoral law by parliament.

The 2017 law had been amended to allow for postponing the introduction of the six new seats until 2026.