Samy Gemayel, leader of the Kataeb party. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Kataeb party leader Samy Gemayel lashed out at Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri during a press conference on Tuesday for his refusal to put a proposed amendment to the 2017 electoral law on Parliament's agenda.
The amendment would allow Lebanese abroad to vote in the same fashion as Lebanese at home, casting their ballots for all 128 MPs, instead of just six seats reserved for the diaspora — as was laid out in a 2017 electoral law that was never implemented. The clause pertaining to the six seats was temporarily suspended and expats voted for all 128 MPs during the last two elections.
In November 2018, Gemayel submitted a bill that would do away with the six-seat plan. "For six years, the law has slept in drawers and no one has demanded its adoption," he told reporters on Tuesday.
"We submitted a joint petition signed by 67 MPs to place the proposal on the agenda of the last session," Gemayel said "Unfortunately, it was not included, which led us to leave the session in protest."
"No one can oppose the will of the people and the Parliament. And the will of the people is embodied in 67 MPs clearly demanding the abolition of the six seats and the approval of voting for all 128," he said.
On Oct. 16, Berri invited Lebanese overseas who wish to vote to come to Lebanon to vote. "The parliamentary elections scheduled for May 2026 will be held on the appointed date," Berri had said. "Those who wish to take part in the ballot ... will simply have to come to Lebanon," he told al-Joumhouria.
"Bringing expatriates to Lebanon to vote is against the law," Gemayel retorted. "We will continue our fight to the end, in Cabinet, in Parliament, and even in the streets."
The issue threatens to paralyze Parliament and has recently raised fears that the May 2026 legislative elections could be postponed or carried out without the participation of the diaspora. In 2022, voters abroad made up six percent of the total electorate, determining the fate of around seven of the 128 MPs.
Several parties, including the Lebanese Forces, the Kataeb, and some Sunni groups close to the Future Movement, are lobbying for expats to be able to vote from their ancestral villages, regardless of the last time they stood foot there, arguing that relegating overseas voters — many of whom were forced, either by war or for economic reasons, to leave their homeland — to six separate MPs is an overt attempt at silencing them.
Lebanon needs its expats "not only for sending funds," Gemayel told reporters, but to decide the fate of the country, "because it is the victim of catastrophes and politicians who do not know how to govern it."
"We need them because they cannot be influenced by fear or incentives; their vote is a free voice whose sole objective is the interest of Lebanon. That is why we urgently need these voices," he said.
Other parties, led by the Amal Movement and Hezbollah, are calling on Berrit to enforce the 2017 electoral law’s yet-unimplemented diaspora MP plan as a means of preventing the Shiite community in the U.S. from being isolated from the elections altogether, pointing to “security repercussions” that could result from American authorities catching wind of any vote placed by an American-Lebanese citizen in their motherland’s elections for a list that includes Hezbollah affiliates, considered members of a terrorist organization by the U.S.
Gemayel also called on President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam "not to back down on an issue that concerns hundreds of thousands of people." He urged expatriates to register on the relevant electoral lists, "in any form whatsoever."
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