Lebanese living abroad will not be able to participate in the 2022 general elections, sources familiar with the electoral legislative process have confirmed to Al-Joumhouria.
The electoral cycle has already started, and the date of the elections in Lebanon has been changed, the sources said, citing the final agreements reached by the parliamentary committee tasked with studying the elections.
The agreements involve having the 2022 general elections take place on March 27th instead of May 8th, i.e. prior to Ramadan, in accordance with the 2017 electoral law.
Additionally, due to logistical and financial issues, the diaspora will not be included in this electoral cycle. The item in the said law that grants Lebanese abroad six representative seats has also been canceled by the committee.
Regarding the magnetic electoral card introduced in the 2017 law, its project has been sent to the government to see if it can be completed in a short period, even though the majority of MPs don’t believe it’s possible.
A legislative parliamentary session is set to take place in the next few weeks to introduce the necessary amendments to the electoral law, especially regarding the exclusion of Lebanese abroad and the magnetic card, according to the newspaper.
Lebanese diaspora voted in their country’s elections from abroad for the first time in 2018. They were supposed to have six MPs representing them in the upcoming elections according to the Lebanese electoral law.
This is one of several discriminative ways the current laws use to prevent change in elections.
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