Geagea: Best law that of smaller districts

Head of Lebanese Forces, Samir Geagea, told L'Orient Le Jour newspaper Saturday that March 14 Camp plans to call for a parliamentary session to vote on an electoral law if a subcommittee failed to reach an agreement by the end of this month, stressing the need to hold elections on due date. The subcommittee, according to the newspaper, is to start holding meetings Tuesday to discuss the electoral system and the number of districts. "If the parliamentary subcommittee could not reach any solution, then we will ask House Speaker Nabih Berri to call for a parliamentary session to vote on the proposals," Geagea said. Some of the proposals included an electoral draft-law that divides Lebanon into 13 districts and is based on proportionality. However, the bill was cast off by the Opposition which instead drafted a law that divides Lebanon into 50 small-sized districts. Geagea considered that the 50 districts draft law was the best one proposed thus far; adding that MP Michel Aoun's latest endorsement of the Orthodox Gathering proposal was simply a stunt. Asked about developments in investigations into his recent attempted assassination, the LF leader stated that the case has been neglected. "I have my doubts concerning who is behind the attempt, but I will keep that to myself." Geagea also considered attacking neutral political leaders, such as Saad Hariri, a direct endorsement of extremism in Lebanon. He attributed the rise of fanatical phenomena in Tripoli and Sidon to the absence of a Sunni leader such as Hariri. Turning to regional events in Syria, he denied that March 14 Camp was awaiting the fall of Assad's regime to create a difference in Lebanon. "I am not betting on the fall of Assad...but that does not mean that he will not fall sooner or later, which will have repercussions on the domestic arena. It is true that Assad's regime is a basic support for March 8 Camp, or rather its creator, but that team also has another focal point that is Iran, which in turn is facing its own problems."