BEIRUT: The electoral law, a saga almost nine years in the making, entered its closing chapter Wednesday after Cabinet referred the bill to Parliament, paving the way for elections in May 2018. Lebanon will be divided into 15 electoral districts based on a proportional voting system and the agreement states that the preferential vote will be based on the district rather than the governorate as had been demanded by some parties, notably the Free Patriotic Movement.

“This is a historic achievement,” Prime Minister Saad Hariri told reporters after a Cabinet session headed by President Michel Aoun. “What I want to say is that despite the reservations ... we focused on the issues that provided consensus in order to pass a new electoral law.”

Aoun and Hariri signed the decree after it acquired the consensus in Cabinet. Ministers voted unanimously in favor of the law in a session that was held in the Baabda Palace.

Some ministers hinted at their dissatisfaction with the law, yet none challenged it with a “no” vote.

Speaker Nabih Berri called for the Parliament to meet Friday to approve the new electoral law. The bill will be the only item on the agenda and voting is set to take place immediately without an open debate.

The deal has come just in time, had the parties not agreed on the law before June 19 then Lebanon would have been heading to an unprecedented constitutional crisis.

The consensus emerged from a flurry of high-level meetings chaired by Hariri that stretched from Monday evening well into Tuesday with hints of the accord only coming to light late that night.

The law represents a major political victory for both Hariri and Aoun, as both had hinged the success of their respective tenures on formulating a new electoral law.

At the beginning of the Cabinet session, Aoun said that the law does not provide for totally balanced representation. “But is a step forward.”

“The vote law is a tremendous achievement,” the president added. “The [voting system] in Lebanon has been majoritarian since before [Lebanon’s] independence.”

Lebanese Forces MP George Adwan, one of the law’s architects, described it as an “achievement.”

“The new electoral law was made in Lebanon,” he said in a statement. “The achievement is that everyone was able to agree to reach common ground and today, the achievement we have reached is to be able to communicate with everyone.”

Despite the aversion of a constitutional crisis, the law did not include all that was hoped for. A women’s quota, a cause championed by Hariri since the beginning of serious discussions into the nature of the electoral law, was not included. Its omission sparked the ire of a number of NGOs, notably the National Commission for Lebanese Women.

Other appeals, such as allowing military personnel to vote and lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 were also omitted. The Cabinet also decided to extend Parliament’s tenure for another 11 months in what was dubbed a “technical extension” to allow the Interior Ministry to lay the groundwork for voting to take place based on the new law.

Elections are set to be held between March 20 and May 19, 2018.

“The extension that we are seeking is only technical to stage modern, transparent and impartial elections,” Hariri said.

The electoral law included 125 articles. Among them is an article that introduces a so-called “magnetic voting card” that would reportedly allow voters living outside their constituencies to vote in the constituency they are registered in.

In the next elections, expats will not have the six assigned MP that FPM head Gebran Bassil demanded. Yet they would still be able to make their voices heard as the magnetic ballot will allow overseas voters to go to polling stations in Lebanese embassies, consulates and other predetermined centers. In the next electoral cycle after 2018, the six seats will be assigned to the diaspora if a further decree is passed by Cabinet. Despite the seemingly positive developments, analysts said that the electoral law will more or less reproduce the same Parliament currently in place.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Qanso said that rivals managed to agree on a vote law “despite our reservations,” reiterating that Lebanon should be treated as one constituency for elections.

Industry Minister Hussein Hajj Hasan said that the new vote law includes the “most important form of reform ... proportionality.”

Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblatt said he will carry on with preparations for the election, despite the vote law’s flaws.

“It’s important to deal with reality after the [vote] law was agreed on and prepare for elections,” he said via Twitter. “It’s a new chapter, and all of us contributed to it.”