Against the backdrop of their demand for polling stations in the places of residence of voters
Lebanese President Michel Aoun and his political team raised the issue of establishing “megacenters” (local polling stations) to enable voters to vote in their places of residence instead of their hometowns, reiterating the opposition’s fears that it was behind an effort to postpone the elections scheduled for May 15th.
It was reported that the Minister of Tourism, Walid Nassar, asked in the ministerial committee session devoted to discussing the issue the day before yesterday the possibility of postponing the elections. The Republic, putting him in the campaign against President Aoun, says that Aoun “has always emphasized and still insists on the necessity of holding elections on time,” stressing at the same time that “the Ministry of Interior has no money until now to start the election procedures.”
The proposal of the Minister of Tourism, the “Megacenter”, which allows the Lebanese to vote in their place of residence and not in their towns, sparked political confusion and a debate between the head of the “Lebanese Forces” Party, Samir Geagea and the head of the “Free Patriotic Movement” MP Gebran Bassil, against the background of Geagea’s accusation of Bassil of trying to spoil the elections, at a time. The meetings that discussed this issue and how to work on securing the Megacentre continued, and two meetings were held yesterday, the first at the Ministry of Tourism and the second at the Ministry of the Interior to discuss the cost and time required to accomplish this.
Nassar said in a statement, “We will put the initial cost of the megacenter to be submitted to the Minister of Interior, and if the political will is found to approve the megacenter to serve the voters, we are with the state incurring additional costs and thus saving the citizens.”
Minister Nassar denied that he had asked, in the government’s last session, to postpone the parliamentary elections for weeks so that the MegaCenter could be secured, stressing that he has no political accounts and his reference is President Aoun and Prime Minister Najib Mikati, stressing in a television interview that “with the adoption of the Megacenter, but it should not be Postponing the elections by one day, because it is a constitutional entitlement.” He said, “I give it up in the interest of holding the elections on time,” noting that “the Ministers of Finance and Culture said that there are financial obstacles to this day in this file, and the funds allocated for the parliamentary elections are still in the committees.” He indicated that he asked the Minister of Interior and Municipalities, Bassam Mawlawi, to take the permission of the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister, to go to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, and asked him to call for a session of the General Assembly this week, so that the Council would approve all the obstacles that delay the elections.
But these explanations and justifications do not seem to have persuaded some political parties, as positions were issued accusing the Presidency of the Republic and the “National Current” of working to postpone the elections, which was denied by sources familiar with the position of the presidency, skeptical of the report of the Minister of the Interior that he previously submitted and showed the impossibility of achieving the MegaCenter before the election on May 15.
With the sources confirming that Aoun is insisting on holding the elections on time, they clarified that the report of the Ministry of Interior spoke about the 1.3 million voters who voted via MegaCenter at a cost of more than 5 million dollars and about 30 machines, considering that these numbers are exaggerated, and that a large number of Lebanese will vote. In their villages, and confirming at the same time that the Ministry of Interior does not have the funds necessary to spend it on the elections, and the funds have not been secured for it until now.
In the context of accusations of the presidency and Bassil of seeking again to falter the elections, “Lebanese Forces” party leader Samir Geagea said in a statement yesterday: “The reasons that led the (Free Patriotic Movement) to return to the MegaCentre proposal have become clear again, as Gebran Bassil and his ministers and deputies know Others accepted the impossibility of working with the MegaCenter system in the upcoming elections within the interval between this entitlement. Just as a reminder, we were the first to ask for the MegaCenter and we will continue to advocate its adoption, but not to use it as an excuse to postpone the elections or to topple them.”
He added, “Yesterday, through the position of the ministers of the Free Patriotic Movement, at the first meeting of the ministerial committee charged with examining the possibility of adopting the megacenter in the parliamentary elections of 2022, it became clear that the movement intended to postpone the elections.” The Lebanese people have their only chance to be saved, after they brought them to the bottom of Hell.” Geagea asked: “What do they want after? Do they want, by their efforts to postpone the parliamentary elections, to eliminate the last free Lebanese in this country? The Lebanese have spent two years in torment, hunger, oppression and deprivation in many areas, hoping to reach the parliamentary elections on May 15, make their voice heard loudly, and achieve the required breach. Even this hope they want to kill.” He concluded by emphasizing: “We will not allow them to do so, and we will continue to fight until the last breath to get the elections on time.”
This matter returned, and Basil responded to him, accusing Geagea of ”treason” without naming him, and wrote on his Twitter account, “It is not the first time that he has betrayed and retreated. The people of the mountain, the north, the south, the Bekaa Valley, and Beirut know its strategic value, and he knows that its establishment is easy and does not delay… But it is like that. This is how he sold the powers of the president in the Taif Agreement and fought the powerful president with his powers, and thus he betrayed the Orthodox law and sacrificed the representatives of the expansion….”