Aoun says parliamentary vote must be held on time, expats participation 'a must'
President Joseph Aoun stressed Wednesday the need to hold the parliamentary elections on time, adding that the participation of expats is a must.
Aoun's comments come amid tensions over the current electoral law which only allows expats to vote for six newly-introduced seats in parliament, with Sixty-five MPs -- forming a parliamentary majority -- demanding to amend the law in order to allow expats to vote for all 128 seats.
Hezbollah and Amal argue that they do not enjoy the same campaigning freedom that other parties enjoy abroad and are objecting the amendment.
"The Lebanese diaspora should take part in the political decision-making in Lebanon by participating in the vote," Aoun said, as he met with a delegation of the 65 MPs who had submitted a draft law to amend the electoral law.
Speaker Nabih Berri had refused to discuss the amendment in Parliament. He said the May 2026 elections will be held on time but that "there is no time for any amendment".
23 October 2025, 16:50
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racist rantings ↴
Letter to the editor: Gaining civil rights for Shias should be top priority
Posted February 5, 2015
Noam Chomsky says that Shias are the majority of Lebanon’s population, such that, if free elections were held and if Shias threw all their support to Hezbollah, it could form the government entirely on its own. Yet Article 24 of the Lebanese Constitution reserves half of parliamentary seats for Christians, who number, by my own guess, around a quarter of the population.
Here, in a nutshell, you have the Shia sense of grievance that makes Hezbollah so dynamic a force in politics, and yet also the solution to two problems.
Hezbollah militancy and Lebanese political instability would both be ameliorated if Hezbollah put its main effort into gaining civil rights and political representation for Lebanon’s Shias – and the U.S. could be on the right side of history by aiding that cause.
So go ahead and tell me
