Taif Agreement Lebanon's
national legislature is the
Parliament of Lebanon (). Since the elections of 1992, the first since the reforms of the
Taif Agreement of 1989 removed the built-in majority previously enjoyed by Christians, the Parliament is composed of 128 seats with a term of four years. Seats in the Parliament are
confessionally distributed but elected by
universal suffrage. Each religious community has an allotted number of seats in the Parliament (see the table below). They do not represent only their co-religionists, however; all candidates in a particular constituency, regardless of religious affiliation, must receive a plurality of the total vote, which includes followers of all confessions. The system was designed to minimize inter-sectarian competition and maximize cross-confessional cooperation: candidates are opposed only by co-religionists, but must seek support from outside their own faith in order to be elected. In practice, this system has led to charges of
gerrymandering. The opposition
Qornet Shehwan Gathering, a group opposed to the previous pro-
Syrian governments, has claimed that constituency boundaries have been drawn so as to allow many
Shi'a Muslims to be elected from Shi'a-majority constituencies (where the
Hezbollah Party is strong), while allocating many Christian members to Muslim-majority constituencies, forcing Christian politicians to represent Muslim interests. Similar charges, but in reverse, were made against the
Chamoun administration in the 1950s. The following table sets out the confessional allocation of seats in the Parliament before and after the
Taif Agreement. Currently, there are plans to reform Lebanon's election laws at least before the
2028 Lebanese general election. Among the changes most likely are a reduction of the voting age from 21 to 18, a more proportional electoral system, reforms to the oversight of elections and an invitation for
Lebanese voters from abroad to register to vote in Lebanese embassies, although there is currently no clear promise of them being able to vote from abroad. Especially outside the major cities, elections tend to focus more on local than national issues, and it is not unusual for a party to join an electoral ticket in one constituency while aligned with a rival party – even an ideologically opposite party – in another constituency. Lebanese presidential elections are indirect, with the
President being elected to a 6-year term by the Parliament.
2008 Doha Agreement Adopting the kaza as an electoral constituency in conformity with the 1960 law, whereby the districts of Marjayoun-
Hasbaya,
Baalbek-
Hermel and West Bekaa-
Rashaya remain as a single electoral constituency each. As for Beirut, it was divided in the following manner: The first district:
Achrafieh – Rmeil – Saifi The second district: Bachoura – Medawar – the
Port The third district: Minet al-Hosn – Ain al-Mreisseh – Al-Mazraa – Mousseitbeh – Ras Beirut – Zoqaq al-Blat. Elections took place on June 7, 2009. The
Rafik Hariri Martyr List, an anti-Syrian bloc led by
Saad Hariri, captured control of the legislature winning 71 of the 128 available seats. The
Amal-
Hezbollah alliance won 30 seats, with 27 seats going to the
Free Patriotic Movement and allied parties.
2017 electoral law On 15 May 2013, the Parliament extended its mandate for 17 months, due to the deadlock over the electoral law. And, on 5 November 2014, the Parliament enacted another extension, thus keeping its mandate for an additional 31 months, until 20 June 2017, and on 16 June 2017 the Parliament in turn extended its own mandate an additional 11 months to hold elections according to a much-anticipated reformed electoral law. After extending its term for 9 years, a new parliament was elected on 6 May 2018 in the
2018 general election. According to the Lebanese constitution and the electoral law of 2017, elections are held on a Sunday during the 60 days preceding the end of the sitting parliament's mandate. In June 2017 a new electoral law was passed. The previous system (under which the 128 members of
parliament were elected from 26 multi-member constituencies under
multiple non-transferable vote, and the candidates with the highest number of votes within each religious community were elected) with a new electoral law instituting
proportional representation in 15 multi-member constituencies while still maintaining the confessional distribution. However, the 7 out of the 15 of the electoral districts are divided into 2 or more 'minor districts' (largely corresponding to the smaller electoral districts from the old electoral law). Where applicable,
preference vote is counted on the 'minor district' level. With the 2017 electoral law, the country switched from a plurality voting system to a list-based proportional representation system. == Presidential elections ==