BEIRUT: President Michel Aoun will accept nothing short of a new vote law for the next parliamentary elections, official sources said Sunday, as Speaker Nabih Berri sounded downbeat about reaching a formula to replace the disputed 1960 majoritarian system.

“President Aoun will not accept that the upcoming parliamentary elections be held under the current law. He insists on a new vote law,” a source at Baabda Palace told The Daily Star.

“The president has stated this position during his meetings with various politicians because he considers that the current [1960] law does not ensure true representation.”

The source quoted Aoun as saying that he supported “any vote law that might be agreed on by the country’s various political components.”

However, Berri accused some political factions, whom he did not name, of seeking to impose the 1960 law as a “fait accompli” to foil attempts aimed at agreeing on a new system ahead of elections scheduled for May.

Asked to comment on proposed hybrid vote laws, Berri was quoted as saying by visitors at his Ain al-Tineh residence: “There is no longer discussion on any majoritarian formula [or a hybrid law]. It seems that work is focused on the 1960 [law] to impose it as a fait accompli.”

On how he will deal with Aoun if Parliament fails to endorse a new vote law, Berri said: “It has become known that I and the president are in agreement before and after the presidential election. The problem is not here, but somewhere else. The problem lies with those who are cooking the 1960 dish.”

The speaker said he “fully understands” MP Walid Jumblatt’s concerns over calls for a proportional vote law, and reiterated his opposition to any new extension of Parliament’s mandate, which has been extended twice in 2013 and 2014.

Berri, who has called for two legislative sessions this week to discuss and approve a 47-item agenda, said he hoped that Parliament’s legislation would move into high gear following prolonged paralysis caused by the 29-month presidential vacuum that ended with Aoun’s election as president on Oct. 31.

He also hoped that the 2017 draft state budget, which had been referred by Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil to the Cabinet, would be approved by the ministers soon so that it can be sent to Parliament. Berri added that the draft budget contains important matters, including the wage-hike bill for civil servants and school teachers.Berri called over the weekend for morning and evening legislative sessions to be held Wednesday and Thursday to discuss and approve 47 items, including 24 urgent bills, on the agenda.

Information Minister Melhem Riachi also called for a new vote law to rectify what he termed “Christian representation” in the next Parliament.

In an interview with a radio station, Riachi, one of three ministers representing the Lebanese Forces in the new government, underlined the need to “lift injustice from the Christians through an electoral law that is fair to all the parties.”

“We don’t want anyone to treat us unjustly, nor do we want to do the same with anyone. The problem is to rectify Christian representation, but not at the expense of the other sects,” he said, adding that the LF had reached “a compromise law” with the Future Movement and the Progressive Socialist Party to “correct representation in Parliament, particularly Christian representation.”

Rival factions are seeking to reconcile two different hybrid electoral laws.

One proposal was made by Berri’s bloc, which calls for half of Parliament’s 128 members to be elected on the basis of proportional representation and the other half on the current 1960 winner-take-all system. The other hybrid proposal, presented by the Future Movement, the LF and the PSP, calls for 60 MPs to be elected on the basis of proportional representation, and the remaining 68 MPs on a winner-take-all system.

Hezbollah reiterated its support for a vote law based on full proportional representation with Lebanon declared a single district.

“The formula that achieves justice and effectiveness in parliamentary representation is the one that adopts full proportionality with a single district or enlarged districts,” MP Mohammad Raad, head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, said during a memorial ceremony in the southern town of Kafra. “Anything short of this formula, justice will remain distorted and lame.”

He said politicians who are prolonging discussions on proposed electoral laws with the aim of returning to the 1960 law are “committing a crime against the country.”

Separately, the Cabinet is set to meet under Prime Minister Saad Hariri at the Grand Serail Wednesday to discuss some 32 items, the most important of which is one related to the country’s potential offshore oil and gas reserves.

The Cabinet will follow up discussions on the amendment of the financial system of the Lebanese Petroleum Administration, the Baabda Palace source said. He added that the Cabinet last week postponed discussing this issue because Aoun and some ministers were out of the country on visits to Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The six-member LPA is mainly tasked with supervising the licensing of the offshore oil and gas exploration.