Ziad Baroud - Career and Policymaking Activities

Career and Policymaking Activities

Baroud held a number of academic posts as lecturer in two prestigious universities in Lebanon: His alma mater Université Saint Joseph (USJ) and Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik (USEK). Furthermore, he sits today on the Board of Trustees of Notre Dame University.

With time, Baroud became more and more involved in key public actions that took him to the forefront of national, high-profile political activism, largely due to his renowned expertise on many impending national topics, notably electoral law, decentralization and the constitution.

Electoral reform

Ziyad Baroud is one of the staunchest and most active experts on electoral law reform in Lebanon. In March 1996, Baroud founded along with other activists the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE), an independent, nonprofit organization specialized in the study of elections and electoral laws' impact on democracy. The subject of elections and electoral law reform will become another forte of Ziyad Baroud's life and political agenda. In 2004, Baroud was elected Secretary General of LADE to lead a group of more than 1,300 domestic electoral observers during the 2005 elections. In 2006, he was chosen to serve as a board member of the Lebanese chapter of Transparency International (LTA). In 2005–2006, he was commissioned by the Prime Minister of the Republic Fuad Siniora along with eleven others to serve on a blue-ribbon commission headed by Former Minister Fouad Boutros to propose a draft for electoral law reform, this commission came to be familiarly known as the "Boutros Commission".

The Boutros Commission

In 2005, the new cabinet headed by Prime Minister Fuad Siniora launched an independent commission on 8 August 2005 headed by Former Foreign Minister Fouad Boutros to study the dire issue of the 2000 electoral law and propose a change. The commission was named the "Lebanese National Commission on Electoral Law", more casually known as the "Boutros Commission." Twelve people, six Muslims and six Christians, were appointed, of which Baroud was chosen to be one of the key expert members. Other members included: Fouad Boutros (President), Ghaleb Mahmassany, Michel Tabet, Zouheir Chokr, Ghassan Abou Alwan, Nawaf Salam, Abdel Salam Sheaib, Fayez Al-Hajj Shahine, Paul Salem, Khaldoun Naja, and Arda Ekmekji.

The commission met for nine months and delivered a 129-article draft law for comprehensive electoral reform to the cabinet on 31 May 2006. The 129 articles detailed a myriad of reforms including lowering the voting age to 18 years, implementing an electoral list quota of 30% female candidates, an assessment of absentee balloting for Lebanese abroad, and the implementation of comprehensive and tight regulations for political campaigns and their financial spendings, among other things.

Unfortunately, the cabinet ran out of time before it had a chance to vote on the Boutros Commission's proposal. Five weeks later, the July War broke out in July 2006 before the law could be sent to parliament. The subsequent deterioration of the political situation and closing of the legislature prevented any proposed reforms from being addressed, and remained pending.

Decentralization

Baroud worked as a research associate at the "Lebanese Center for Policy Studies", a Beirut-based think tank of which he is a board member today. LCPS aims to provide researched, politically neutral guidelines to serve policymaking. Baroud also consulted with the UNDP on local governance and decentralization from 2001 to 2008. He is currently the chairman of the "Governmental Committee of Decentralization" (Ar: اللجنة الخاصة باللامركزية), knowing that the topic of decentralization happens to be his Doctorate Thesis subject.