Gulfnews by Joseph A. Kechichian – Beirut: After it was widely criticised in 2013, the Lebanese joint
parliamentary committees convened on Tuesday to study various electoral
drafts and settled on the so-called “Orthodox Gathering Electoral Law”
for serious consideration.

Under the controversial proposal, an
expansion of parliamentary seats would be recorded — from 128 to 134 —
along with a complex pattern that would allow each of Lebanon’s 18
officially recognised religious communities to elect their own deputies.

The
proportional representation system will consider the country as a
single district. Consequently, the draft stipulates that each sect will
vote for its own representatives, with registered Shiite voters only be
able to vote for Shiite candidates, Sunnis for Sunnis, Maronites for
Maronites, and so on.

In other words, the idea behind the law is
to abandon the current list system (dating back to 1960) that requires
political parties to line up a variety of candidates drawn from various
sects.

Under this proposal, vehemently derided by critics, the
Maronite vote would allegedly become 1.5 times more important than the
weight of the Sunni vote, and the Greek Orthodox voters would carry more
than two times the weight of Shiite votes because of dramatically
altered demographic changes.

Still, the so-called Orthodox Plan faced severe criticisms from the
Future Movement and Sa’ad Hariri and, more vociferously by the
Progressive Socialist Party and its leader, Walid Junblatt.

Former
President Michel Sulaiman tweeted, “The Orthodox law violates the
constitution in every way,” and while three other draft laws were also
considered during Tuesday’s meeting — the so-called hybrid,
proportional, and majority laws — no decisions were reached to debate
them in parliament. How could any plan be adopted when so many
parliamentarians, who would be asked to approve, rejected it?

For
his part, Speaker Nabih Berri revealed that the joint committees will
hold another meeting next Monday to address 13 additional draft laws
ahead of holding a legislative session to approve one of them, although
only four seemed to carry any traction, even if the favourite Orthodox
Law is hugely contentious.

Ironically, the Free Patriotic Movement
(FPM) perceived the proposed law as the best of the lot, and added a
new argument by seeking to grant expatriate Lebanese citizens the right
of representation.

Deputy Ebrahim Kanaan affirmed that the FPM was
not willing to “strike a deal over [the Orthodox Law], but it is linked
to rights stipulated in the constitution and National Pact.” He
described the joint parliamentary committees’ meeting as “a step in the
right direction,” noting that the election of a president and adoption
of a just electoral law will pave the way for political reforms in
Lebanon.

Kanaan reminded observers that the FPM previously
endorsed this proposal but insisted that “we should also not overlook
the rights of expatriates in voting,” because “expatriates should be
represented in parliament similar to parliaments the world over.” Given
its immense complications, it is unbelievable that Lebanese
parliamentarians contemplated such a scheme, which necessitates
elaborate changes to citizenship regulations.

Since 2009, the last
year when parliamentary elections were held in Lebanon, deputies
extended their own terms in office twice, once in 2013 and a second time
in 2014. The current term presumably ends in 2017 and a further
breakdown to adopt a new law will most likely necessitate a third
extension