A meeting of the joint parliamentary committees. (Credit: NNA.)
Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Berry, has scheduled a meeting for the parliamentary joint committees on Thursday at 11 a.m. to discuss several electoral law proposals ahead of the upcoming elections set for 2026.
Among the proposals are the so-called 'Orthodox' law and a plan to establish a Senate, a reform outlined by the 1989 Taif Agreement.
The committees involved include those of Finance and Budget, Administration and Justice, Defense, Interior and Municipalities, Health, Labor, and Social Affairs. They are also set to review a proposal aiming to implement a universal mandatory primary healthcare system.
Two law proposals put forward by MP Ali Hassan Khalil (Amal), a close aide to Nabih Berry, are on the table. The first suggests amending the 2017 electoral law, which governed the 2018 and 2022 legislative elections, ahead of the next election in 2026. It proposes replacing the current 15 districts with a single national district based on proportional representation. The second proposal calls for the establishment of a Senate.
According to this proposal, the upper house would consist of 46 members elected based on sectarian quotas and a balance between Christians and Muslims, while MPs would no longer be elected based on sectarian criteria as they currently are.
The "orthodox" law proposal from 2013 envisions Lebanon as a single district in theory, yet voters would only cast ballots for candidates of their own sect.
These proposals were discussed at a joint committee meeting on Tuesday chaired by Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab. "This is an important political dossier that requires consensus, but it is also impossible to prevent an MP from submitting a proposal or refuse its study," he stated after the session without providing further details.
The meeting was attended by Finance Minister Yassine Jaber and Energy Minister Joe Saddi. Additionally, decrees concerning oil agreements with Iraq were reviewed. The Energy Minister was asked to provide more details, particularly regarding billing recovery and waste control strategies within the sector. He committed to presenting this information at the next meeting.
Bou Saab also mentioned that two legislative proposals concerning the Red Cross will undergo detailed review in a sub-committee before being revisited by the joint committees.