{"id":33897,"date":"2017-04-13T10:02:17","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T10:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/lebanon-s-aoun-blocks-extension-of-parliament-s\/"},"modified":"2017-04-13T10:02:13","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T10:02:13","slug":"lebanon-s-aoun-blocks-extension-of-parliament-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/lebanon-s-aoun-blocks-extension-of-parliament-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Lebanon&#8217;s Aoun blocks extension of parliament&#8217;s term"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Michel Aoun invokes his constitutional powers to adjourn the parliament for one month.}<\/p>\n<p>Lebanese President Michel Aoun has suspended a parliamentary session for a month, temporarily blocking proposed plans to extend parliament&#8217;s term for the third time in a row since 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Parliament was expected to vote on Thursday to extend its own mandate until 2018 without an election, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>In a televised address to the nation on Wednesday, Aoun said that the delay was aimed at giving politicians more time to reach an agreement on a new electoral law.<\/p>\n<p>Current members of parliament were elected in 2009 for what was meant to be a four-year term.<\/p>\n<p>Lebanon&#8217;s political parties say it is time to scrap the country&#8217;s 1960 voting law that allocates seats by religious sect, but disagree over what system should replace it.<\/p>\n<p>Opposition parties and civic groups are threatening demonstrations against any parliamentary extension on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Sectarian divisions<\/p>\n<p>Lebanese politics has long been dogged by sectarian divisions, with the war in neighbouring Syria exacerbating party rivalries.<\/p>\n<p>Parliament has already extended its mandate twice because MPs were unable to agree on an election law.<\/p>\n<p>It last did this in 2014, citing security concerns linked to the civil war in Syria.<\/p>\n<p>The government struggles to make basic decisions and parliament is often paralysed.<\/p>\n<p>In October of 2016, parliament elected former army commander Michel Aoun as president, ending a 29-month vacuum in a political deal that secured victory for his Lebanese ally Hezbollah, Iran and Syria.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-19357 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/ce8c9a533f78430ab88b929016ae8cbc_18.jpg\" alt=\"Michel Aoun was elected as president in October 2016 ending a 29 month vacuum\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Source:Al Jazeera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Michel Aoun invokes his constitutional powers to adjourn the parliament for one month.} Lebanese President Michel Aoun has suspended a parliamentary session for a month, temporarily blocking proposed plans to extend parliament&#8217;s term for the third time in a row since 2013. Parliament was expected to vote on Thursday to extend its own mandate until [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[101],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-33897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-internationl","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33897"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=33897"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=33897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}