Legislative Branch
Lebanon's national legislature is called the Assembly of Representatives (Majlis al-Nuwab in Arabic). 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 and distributed the seats equally between Christians and Muslims), the Parliament has had 128 seats. The term was four years, but has recently been extended to five.
Seats in the Parliament are confessionally distributed but elected by universal suffrage. Each religious community has an allotted number of seats in the Parliament. 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 of their own faith in order to be elected.
The opposition Qornet Shehwan Gathering, a group opposed to the former pro-Syrian regime, 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.
| Confession | Before Taif | After Taif |
|---|---|---|
| Maronite | 30 | 34 |
| Greek Orthodox | 11 | 14 |
| Greek Catholic | 6 | 8 |
| Armenian Orthodox | 4 | 5 |
| Armenian Catholic | 1 | 1 |
| Protestant | 1 | 1 |
| Other Christians | 1 | 1 |
| Total Christians | 54 | 64 |
| Sunni | 20 | 27 |
| Shi'ite | 19 | 27 |
| Alawite | 0 | 2 |
| Druze | 6 | 8 |
| Total Muslims | 45 | 64 |
| Total | 99 | 128 |
Read more about this topic: Politics Of Lebanon
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