BEIRUT: President Michel Sleiman accused the country’s political parties Wednesday of seeking to extend Parliament’s mandate by failing to agree on a new electoral law for this year’s polls, but he vowed to prevent such a scheme from succeeding.

The president’s rare diatribe against the rival factions came during a Cabinet meeting he chaired at Baabda Palace, where he also pledged that the parliamentary elections, scheduled for early June, would be held on time. Also Wednesday, former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, head of the Future parliamentary bloc, said the elections should be held on time and should be an occasion to bring about change in Lebanon by removing Hezbollah and its March 8 allies from the government, which he blamed for the country’s deteriorating economic and security conditions.

Apparently referring to the March 8 and March 14 parties’ failure so far to agree on a new electoral law to replace the 1960 voting system, Sleiman vowed not to allow the extension of Parliament’s six-year mandate, which expires in June shortly after a new legislature is elected. [Link]