Daily Star - Mps Unlikely To Support Voting Age Reform.doc

BEIRUT: Parliament is unlikely to pass a proposal to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 during a session on Monday.
Christian blocs, including the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), the Lebanese Forces, and Christian MPs from the March 14 Forces, as well as the Future Movement will attend the session but will not vote in favor of Speaker Nabih Berri’s proposal to lower the voting age.
A two-thirds quorum of 86 MPs out of 128 is necessary to hold the session to amend the Constitution making the voting age 18.
A call to lower the voting age has sparked fears of a shake-up of Lebanon’s political structure, a complex power-sharing system between Christians and Muslims that has helped preserve a fragile peace since the end of the 1975-1990 Civil War.
The fear resonates most strongly within Lebanon’s once-dominant Maronite Christian community, today estimated at around 30 percent of the 4-million population
FPM MP Alain Aoun told LBCI television Sunday his bloc has no intention of cancelling Monday’s Parliament session, which would happen if MPs failed to meet the minimum quorum of members necessary to hold the session. But he said Change and Reform bloc MPs will not vote in favor of a draft law to lower the voting age to 18.
The FPM and other Christian blocs tie the lowering of the voting age to giving expatriates the right to vote in their countries of residence.
State Minister for Administrative Reform Mohammad Fneish, a member of Hizbullah’s politburo, said Sunday that if he had to choose between holding the June municipal polls on time or reforming municipal electoral law, he would choose reform.
“We should enhance the system of representation in municipalities, and enhance the municipalities’ role,” he said, echoing his allies in the FPM. – The Daily Star