The Minister of Interior and Municipalities Bassam Mawlawi affirmed that “the appeal submitted by the Free Patriotic Movement against the election law will not affect the fate of the electoral process. If the appeal is accepted, the law will be applied in its original form.”

Mawlawi told MTV: “The Ministry of the Interior is ready to implement the law and hold parliamentary elections between 3/21/2022 and 5/21/2021. Appealing the deadlines will not be an excuse to terminate the elections, since these deadlines are exclusively administrative and we can abide to it.”

He pointed out that “as for the expatriates’ voting for six representatives, there is a great difficulty in distributing them by sects over the continents, while the process of registering expatriates and checking their data in the Ministry of Interior takes place as soon as the names are received by it, and the deadline extending between 20/11/2021 to 11/30/2021 is sufficient to register all expatriates wishing to to vote, and their number has so far reached about 150,000 registered with the Ministry of Interior, out of 180,000.”

Mawlawi added: “The magnetic card needs preparation and testing before the elections in order to avoid any sudden malfunction that may prevent the elections from taking place. Therefore, if the appeal related to the card is accepted, it cannot be applied even if it is stipulated by the original law, similar to what happened in 2018.”

In response to a question about the necessity of appointing a supervisory board before November 20, Mawlawi said: “Even if the appointment is not made, the current supervisory board will remain until the new board is appointed.”