Berri: The municipal election postponement is out of the question

Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament Nabih Berri stated Thursday that the postponement of municipal elections, scheduled for May, was "out of the question." These elections have been postponed year after year since 2022 by Parliament due to the socio-economic crisis and in 2024 because of the war in southern Lebanon.

"The postponement of the municipal elections is out of the question and has no reason to be," Berri said in an interview with al-Joumhouria. "We insist on holding elections throughout Lebanon, particularly in the municipalities of the southern regions that have been destroyed by Israeli aggression."

He added, "If it's possible to set up polling stations there, so be it; if not, we will set up polling stations in other places, in a building located in a neighboring village, in an apartment, or a room ... We will vote even if it's on the dust."

The Minister of Interior and Municipalities, Ahmed Hajjar, called the electoral college of Mount Lebanon on Wednesday for the municipal and mukhtars elections set for May 4. He also signed decisions to elect the members of municipal councils and the mukhtars councils and to distribute polling stations. This is the first round of an election spread over all four Sundays of May 2025, postponed three times in 2022, 2023, and 2024. On Sunday, May 11, the election will take place in the governorates of North Lebanon and Akkar. On Sunday, May 18, in Beirut and the Bekaa. Finally, on May 25, the vote will concern the governorates of South Lebanon.

The convening of the electoral college of Mount Lebanon closely follows the submission by two MPs from the popular protest, Marc Daou and Waddah Sadek, of a bill aimed at technically postponing the election by a few months to allow the adoption of some reforms to the electoral law.