Diaspora voting debate intensifies: Deep political divisions emerge in Lebanon ahead of elections

Report by Maroun Nassif, English adaptation by Karine Keuchkerian

Once again, Lebanon’s Cabinet has postponed a decision on two draft amendments to the parliamentary elections law, effectively sidestepping the issue.

The first draft, submitted by Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji, proposes canceling the six parliamentary seats allocated to Lebanese expatriates and instead allowing them to vote from abroad for their home districts in Lebanon. 

The second, introduced by Interior Minister Ahmad al-Hajjar, seeks to replace the yet-to-be-implemented magnetic voting card with a QR code system.

Ministerial sources told LBCI that during Wednesday’s session, President Joseph Aoun initially pushed for referring one of the drafts to Parliament. 

However, a heated debate quickly broke out between ministers from Hezbollah and the Amal Movement — who insisted on maintaining the current law and electing the six expatriate MPs — and ministers from the Lebanese Forces, who strongly supported granting expatriates the right to vote for their districts from abroad. 

At one point, reportedly even threatening to withdraw from the session.

Faced with the impasse, President Aoun decided to postpone the matter and return it to the ministerial committee for further study — a move also supported by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.

With political blocs deeply divided, questions remain about whether the ministerial committee can reach a compromise or if the impasse will continue into next week. According to several ministers, the answer is clearly no. So why waste time amid such deep divisions? To that, there is no clear answer.

The prime minister insists on studying a solution within the ministerial committee, which was formed on June 16 and recently joined by Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri.

So far, the options under consideration are adopting Rajji’s proposal, adopting al-Hajjar’s proposal, or merging the two.

In either case, ministers acknowledge that the main obstacle lies with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who refuses to place any proposal allowing expatriates to vote from abroad on Parliament’s agenda.

This raises a question many are asking: What about a third option — canceling the six seats allocated to expatriates and eliminating the right of expatriates to vote from abroad, on the premise that anyone wishing to vote must do so in Lebanon? This proposal is reportedly the most widely discussed behind the scenes.

It does not provoke opposition from Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, nor is it rejected by the Lebanese Forces and their allies. It may be the only viable solution to ensure parliamentary elections are held on schedule — a goal strongly supported by both the president and the prime minister.