Alfredo Cotait Neto, Brazilian entrepreneur (left), and Nassib Fawaz, Lebanese emigrant settled in Dearborn (right), in front of the city's mosque in Detroit, Michigan in June 2008. (Credit: L’Orient-Le Jour)
In early July, Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri received a letter. Sent from the “heart of the Dearborn community” in Michigan, United States, the letter listed “the deep concerns of a large portion of the Lebanese diaspora, especially members of the Shiite community” regarding expatriate voting in the 2026 legislative elections.Since 2017, electoral law states that the diaspora has the right to elect six MPs in a dedicated district. Article 112 is strongly backed by Hezbollah and Berri’s Amal Movement. Others, however, want to repeal it and allow the diaspora to vote for all 128 MPs in the country, as they could in 2018 and 2022 when the article was suspended for those two elections. In the letter, these “supporters of Nabih Berri’s line” defend the six-seat rule, citing in particular the difficulty of voting for Hezbollah from the...
In early July, Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri received a letter. Sent from the “heart of the Dearborn community” in Michigan, United States, the letter listed “the deep concerns of a large portion of the Lebanese diaspora, especially members of the Shiite community” regarding expatriate voting in the 2026 legislative elections.Since 2017, electoral law states that the diaspora has the right to elect six MPs in a dedicated district. Article 112 is strongly backed by Hezbollah and Berri’s Amal Movement. Others, however, want to repeal it and allow the diaspora to vote for all 128 MPs in the country, as they could in 2018 and 2022 when the article was suspended for those two elections. In the letter, these “supporters of Nabih Berri’s line” defend the six-seat rule, citing in particular the difficulty of voting for...
