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| News Flash | Interior Ministry readies proposal for expat vote  |  Lebanese Embassies and consulates ordered to register nationals abroad
BEIRUT: Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud stressed Thursday that his ministry was in the process of preparing a proposal for the Cabinet within a six-month deadline to allow expatriates to participate in Lebanon’s next parliamentary elections. The electoral law passed by Parliament in 2008 endorsed both lowering the voting age to 18 and producing the regulations required to let expatriates vote abroad during the 2013 parliamentary round.
However, legislators have yet to actually pass the constitutional amendment needed to lower the voting age.
Ahead of the June 2010 municipal elections, Christian groups in the March 14 movement have demanded that lowering the voting age be accompanied by two items: producing the legislation needed to allow expatriates to vote abroad, as well as granting people of Lebanese origin the right to recover their nationality.
Asked whether expatriates would be allowed to vote during the municipal elections, Baroud said that no country allowed non-residents to vote during municipal elections.
The minister stated that allowing people of Lebanese origin to retrieve their nationality was not tied to the municipal elections.
Addressing reporters at a news conference attended by Foreign Minister Ali Shami and European Union Ambassador Patrick Laurent, Baroud added that the Interior Ministry handed over to the Foreign Ministry a list of Lebanese expatriates.
The list guarantees the expatriates’ participation in Lebanese elections and allows them to register their children in Lebanese embassies abroad, Baroud added.
For his part, Shami said that he had sent memos to Lebanese consulates and embassies abroad demanding the registration of Lebanese expatriates as well as their children.
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| | Friday,September 03 rd,2010 |
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