Gaza Genocide16 May, 20262 min read
Nabih Berri Says Lebanon Will Hold Parliamentary Elections May 10 Despite Calls To Postpone
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Parliament speaker Nabih Berri commits to holding elections on May 10. Expatriate voting remains uncertain; Legislation Commission says expatriates can vote from abroad.
Lebanon election deadline
Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said on Friday, February 13, 2026, that he remains firmly committed to holding parliamentary elections on May 10, despite calls from some political circles to postpone the vote. Berri said he had informed President Joseph Aoun and the government of his stance, asserting that “it is not permissible to obstruct its launch by disrupting, postponing, or extending the most important constitutional deadline.”
The elections are scheduled for Lebanese residents on May 10, 2026 and for expatriates on May 1 and 3, as the country faces confusion over expatriate participation that divides the political class. Interior and Municipalities Minister Ahmad al-Hajjar reiterated his commitment to a timely vote, telling al-Joumhouria that “there are legal deadlines and the elections will be held on time.”
Expat voting dispute
A dispute over how Lebanese expatriates vote has intensified after the Legislation and Consultation Commission estimated that Lebanese expatriates can vote from abroad to elect the 128 deputies, not only for the six designated seats in the 2017 electoral law. Nabih Berry lambasted the commission’s opinion, accusing it of “the existence of a plan aimed at preventing the legislative deadline from taking place on the scheduled date,” and said the body published its view “on the instruction of a party.”
The commission’s response followed two questions posed by Interior Minister Ahmad Hajjar about whether expatriates registered to vote can vote from abroad for the 128 deputies and whether they must travel to Lebanon to vote for the 128 deputies. The L’Orient-Le Jour report said the legal vacuum could leave expatriates registered to vote—numbering 144,000—unable to elect candidates because no candidate could register.
Broader voting stakes
While Lebanon debates expatriate voting rules for the May 2026 ballot, Spain’s debate over an extraordinary regularization of migrants has also turned on whether regularized people can vote. El País said the controversy centers on Article 2 of the Constitution—“the right to suffrage corresponds to Spaniards of legal age …”—and concluded that “Regularized: they cannot vote.”
El País added that immigrants with legal residence can vote in municipal elections only when they meet specific requirements, including having lived in Spain uninterrupted for at least five years and being registered in the municipality and enrolled in its census. In parallel, El Independiente framed the regularization as potentially reshaping immigration status while noting that, as of today, the vast majority will not obtain automatic voting rights and only a limited portion could vote in municipal elections if additional requirements are met.