Lebanese cabinet discussed Tuesday a draft electoral law proposed by Interior Minister Marwan Charbel and decided to pursue its deliberations on the bill in later sessions.

Lebanese cabinet discussed Tuesday a draft electoral law proposed by Interior Minister Marwan Charbel and decided to pursue its deliberations on the bill in later sessions, state-run National News Agency reported.

“Charbel’s electoral law will be discussed in a session scheduled for November 11,” while the cabinet approved a draft law on the separation of the executive and legislative powers and referred it to parliament, media sources reported.

Ministerial sources expected the government to face obstacles that would hinder major political agreements on the bill.

Charbel’s draft electoral law is likely to put the government on a long and difficult path of “complications that would create obstacles to major political understandings in the short term,” the sources told An Nahar daily.

Despite the pessimistic tone, President Michel Suleiman stressed on Monday that Lebanon should “relinquish the current law which contradicts with democracy.”

The government should adopt “a modern law that paves way for the representation of all Lebanese factions on the basis of equality,” he said a day before presiding the session at Baabda palace.

The draft law's proposals range from adopting 10 to 14 middle-sized constituencies. It also contains proposals to divide Beirut into two electoral districts, as opposed to the current three-way division of the capital.

Charbel has also made proposals on districts in Northern Lebanon, the Bekaa, Mount Lebanon, Nabatiyeh and the South.