Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri during a Parliamentary session on Oct. 21, 2025. (Credit: Hassan Ibrahim)
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said Thursday evening on local MTV television that the objective of an amendment sought by certain political parties to the 2017 electoral law regarding expatriate voting is to "isolate a community," a principle he rejects.
These comments, on an already divisive issue in Lebanon for several months, drew strong reactions, especially within the Christian camp.
Berri's remarks come as 67 MPs, a clear majority of the 128-member chamber, have requested that the current electoral law be amended so that Lebanese abroad can vote from their country of residence for all metropolitan MPs, rather than just for six seats reserved for them, as stipulated in Article 112 of the current law.
The speaker categorically refuses any amendment, notably by not putting the issue on the Cabinet session agenda.
Berri said that "all the rights of expatriates are secured," before recalling that "there is a law in force that must be applied."
"The current electoral law was nicknamed the Georges Adwan law," after the head of the Lebanese Forces' (LF) Parliamentary bloc.
"What has changed today?" he continued, adding: "When this law was adopted, I did not agree, but we went along with the process. But the aim of modifying it or enacting a new one is to isolate a community, and that we reject."
Okais: Berri's 'catastrophic' remarks
"Mr. Speaker [Berri], in which dictionary does the fact that hundreds of thousands of expatriate Lebanese from all regions and confessions, exercising their constitutional right to take part in their country's destiny, amount to the 'isolation of a community'?" asked Kataeb party leader Samy Gemayel.
'Those who genuinely seek to isolate a community from the rest of the Lebanese are those who reject the logic of the state and equality, clinging to their weapons and to their ideological allegiance to Iran, even as the latter abandoned them in the most difficult times," the MP continued in a message on X, in an allusion to Hezbollah, a pro-Iranian group allied unconditionally with Berri's Amal movement.
"In any case, your opinion does not entitle you to prevent Parliament from resolving this debate in a plenary session. The Parliament represents all Lebanese, and it alone holds decision-making power," Gemayel concluded.
Lebanese Forces MP Georges Okais wrote on the same platform: "We are facing a new Constitution and a new internal regulation of Parliament, which Speaker Berri has invented today, apparently based on his mood, which seems to be gloomy."
He called Berri's remarks "catastrophic" and expressed hope that "a swift denial will be issued by the Ain al-Tineh circles."
The LeF have repeatedly criticized Berri's approach to expatriate voting in recent weeks.
Earlier this week, Samir Geagea accused Berri of seeking to monopolize decision-making power in the Cabinet.
