Parliamentary committee elections: Another uphill battle for Nabih Berri

For Nabih Berri, presiding over parliamentary sessions is no longer an easy feat.

The Parliament speaker, who has been in office for 30 years and is a master in the art of making political deals away from the limelight, is clearly not used to the fact that many MPs, especially those from the opposition, appear to be rebelling against these habits and customs, confronting the head of the legislature in his own arena.

After forcing him to comply with their demand to read out the ballots in the elections for speaker and deputy speaker on May 31, the opposition MPs can claim to have scored a point.

“We forced Mr. Berri to hold democratic elections.”

This is how Ibrahim Mneimneh, an MP from Beirut representing the protest movement, summed up the long parliamentary session held Tuesday at the Nejmeh Square [the legislature’s headquarters], to form the committees of the new Parliament.

These committees are “the real heart of Parliament,” as Berri said at the opening of Tuesday’s session. They examine bills and proposals before they are referred to Parliament for adoption, which is why it is important for the different political players to be part of them.

According to Article 19 of Parliament’s rules of procedure, members of parliamentary committees are elected by secret ballot and by an absolute majority (half plus one) of voters.

Elections are therefore a long and arduous process at a time when electronic voting continues to face several vetoes.

This issue was raised during the session by Waddah Sadek, MP for Beirut (representing the protest movement).

In his speech, he argued for an amendment to Parliament’s rules of procedure to adopt electronic voting. He even presented a bill to this effect.

He was joined by several of his colleagues from the independents or opposition, including Elias Hankash (Kataeb/Metn) and Michel Moawad, (Independence Movement/Zgharta).

“The elections for committee members are carried out this way only in Lebanon,” Moawad told L’Orient-Le Jour.

For his part, Hankash recalled on his Twitter account that, technically, Parliament has the necessary equipment to apply the electronic voting system.

This is a position that is all the more significant because the counting of votes after the election of 17 members of the Finance and Budget Committee took more than an hour, because of the lack of prior political agreement — something that Berri was pushing for.

“I wish we could have reached an agreement (before the session) as there is room for all MPs, otherwise the vote will go on for weeks,” Berri said, as several parliamentarians complained about the time taken to count the votes manually.

Hagop Terzian (MP for Tashnag, Beirut) even argued that by simple mathematical calculation, the elections could last 73 hours.

It is therefore in the absence of prior Lebanese-style agreement that the new Parliament began by electing the 17 members of the Committee on Finance and Budget from the 21 MP candidates.

According to L’Orient Today reporter Kabalan Farah, who was covering the session, the candidacy of Firas Hamdan (protest movement, Hasbaya) led to a brief verbal altercation between the latter and Ali Hassan Khalil (Amal). Hamdan had applied for membership after the presentation of a list of 20 names from the Parliament.

In the end, Hamdan lost the battle for this commission as did Mark Daou (protest movement, Aley).

This means that Mneimneh will be the only MP representing the thawra (revolution) in this important committee that brought together elected officials from all sides, except for the Kataeb.

Committee chairmen will be elected Friday

Immediately after the elections, Ibrahim Kanaan, the outgoing chairman of the commission, tweeted to “thank [his] colleagues for their trust.”

“The most important thing is to cooperate to be productive,” he added, giving the impression that he was sure of his re-election, something that will be confirmed during the session dedicated to the election of the commissions’ presidents and rapporteurs scheduled for Friday at 3 p.m. at Nejmeh Square.

Kanaan will be able to count on the support of all the members of the commission (including several newcomers compared to 2018), with the exception of Mneimneh and Moawad.

“I am against the Free Patriotic Movement leading the Finance Committee and the Economy Committee while it is present at the head of the Ministry of Economy,” Moawad told L’Orient-Le Jour.

After the Finance Committee, MPs moved on to the election of the Administration and Justice Committee members.

This is also when MPs turned a deaf ear to Berri’s calls for them to agree to committee members before voting.

“Try to reach an agreement,” Berri told them.

“We do not want to spoil the democratic process,” Salim Aoun (FPM/Zahle) replied.

The 17 members of this committee were elected by secret ballot.

Important changes are to be noted on this level: only a few members have kept the place they had reserved for themselves since 2018, including the chairman of this committee George Adwan, who is setting his sights on a second term.

Ironically, MPs Ali Hassan Khalil (Amal/Marjayoun) and Ghazi Zeaiter (Amal/Baalbeck) were elected as part of the Justice Committee even though they are being prosecuted in the 2020 Beirut port investigation.

Change of strategy

After electing the members of the two committees that were considered to be among the most important, MPs changed their strategy, as they were more open to reaching prior agreement on the members.

Consensus was reached to elect the members of the committees on Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Information and Telecommunications, Youth and Sports, Human Rights, and Women and Children.

During the evening session, Parliament elected members of the committees of Defense and Interior, largely dominated by Hezbollah and its allies, and marked by the absence of MPs from the thawra (revolution).

Members of the Economy and Public Works commission were also elected, while the members of Information Technology and Agriculture and Tourism were elected by acclamation.

Najat Aoun Saliba (protest movement/Chouf) was able to get onboard the Environment Committee.

On Friday, Parliament is set to designate, in addition to the chairs and rapporteurs, the members of the committees of Education and Health.

This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour. Translation by Sahar Ghoussoub.