Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun defended after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting the Orthodox gathering electoral proposal stressing and expressed hope that the political parties will give the proposal a chance to be adopted in the 2013 parliamentary elections.
“We are experiencing the reasons that prompted the gathering to make its proposals in the first place.” Aoun said
Last week, a meeting of Maronite leaders at Bkirki reached an agreement to adopt the Orthodox gathering’s proposal for the electoral law that will be used in the 2013 elections. The proposal called for each sect to elect its own MPs based on the 50 /50 allocation of Muslims and Christians in the parliament , as stipulated in the Taef accord.
He encouraged discussion of the electoral law
“Everyone has the right to launch a discussion over the parliamentary electoral law and I don’t understand the fuss that have erupted over it,” he added.
“Why shouldn’t the Bkirki meeting agreement be discussed with other ideas?” he wondered
Commenting on the Syrian uprising he said that the Syrian government’s approval to allow Arab observers to monitor a deal to end the unrest in Syria “is a move in the right direction to calm down the situation, ” but accused the Arab League of following the path of the United States and Europe. In reference to calls for regime change in Damascus.
“I do not believe that Arabs can deviate from the US-European path that is attacking Syria and calling for a regime change,” Aoun a close ally of the Iranian and Syrian backed Hezbollah militants said.
Commenting on the demands by the Beirut MPs for the establishment of an arms-free Beirut, Aoun said: “What security incidents are they talking about? What assassinations are they referring to?”
“We want to know what crimes require the demand of the establishment of an arms-free city,” Aoun added
On Monday, Beirut MPs demanded that Beirut be established as an arms-free city after the frequent armed clashes that have erupted in the city in recent years.
Two men were wounded last week when a dispute over a parking lot developed into a gunfight in the west Beirut neighborhood of Zaydaniyeh. Following the clash, local gunmen were deployed in the area.
The incident came shortly after an armed clash reportedly broke out in the Beirut neighborhood of Burj Abi Haidar, though it was denied by the Lebanese Army.
“The armed clashes that broke out in several areas in Beirut in recent days, the last of which took place in Zaydaniyeh, and which some like to call a ‘security incident,’ cannot be viewed as a passing issue,” said the statement by the Beirut MPs . “And [Beirut] residents who are threatened by the shells of clashes between armed gangs in the streets and whose families’ safety and property are jeopardized cannot ignore this matter.”
The MPs said that civil peace should first be established in Beirut, adding that security incidents could spread to all Lebanese districts if the situation continues as is and “if solutions continue to be based on brokering agreements [between armed groups and the state rather than imposing the state’s authority].”
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