Parliament of Lebanon

Lebanese Parliament مجلس النواب Assemblée nationale
Type
Type	Unicameral
Leadership
Speaker	Nabih Berri, Amal Movement since November 20, 1992
Structure
Seats	128
Political groups	March 8 Alliance:   FPM (20)   Amal (13)   Hezbollah (13)   LDP (4)   Marada (3)   Glory Movement (2)   ARF (2)   Ba'ath Party (2)   SSNP (2)   Solidarity (1)   Independent (2) March 14 Alliance:   Future Movement (35)   Lebanese Forces (8)   Phalange Party (5)   Hunchak (2)   Murr Bloc (1)   Democratic Left (1)   Jamaa al-Islamiya (1)   National Liberal (1)   Ramgavar (1)   Independent (5)   PSP (7)
Elections
Last election	7 June 2009
Next election	2017
Meeting place
Lebanese Parliament, Beirut, Lebanon
Website
lp.gov.lb

The Parliament of Lebanon is the national parliament of Lebanon. There are 128 members elected to a four-year terms in multi-member constituencies, apportioned among Lebanon's diverse Christian and Muslim denominations. Lebanon has universal adult suffrage. Its major functions are to elect the President of the republic, to approve the government (although appointed by the President, the Prime Minister, along with the Cabinet, must retain the confidence of a majority in the Parliament), and to approve laws and expenditure.

According to its official site, the Arabic name is مجلس النواب Majlis an-Nuwwab (Chamber of Deputies).

On 31 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.

Parliament building

The Parliament building, was built in 1933 according to Armenian Beaux-Arts architect Mardiros Altounian's designs. The building was initially intended to serve as Lebanon's national library; it has an imposing symmetrical structure with an oriental revivalist style articulating historical regional references with neo-Mamluk overtones.

Allocation of seats

A unique feature of the Lebanese system is the principle of "confessional distribution": each religious community has an allotted number of deputies in the Parliament. In elections held between 1932 and 1972 (the last till after the Lebanese Civil War), seats were apportioned between Christians and Muslims in a 6:5 ratio, with various denominations of the two faiths allocated representation roughly proportional to their size. By the 1960s, Muslims had become openly dissatisfied with this system, aware that their own higher birthrate and the higher emigration rate among Christians had by this time almost certainly produced a Muslim majority, which the parliamentary distribution did not reflect. Christian politicians were unwilling to abolish or alter the system, however, and it was one of the factors in the 1975–1990 civil war. The Taif Agreement of 1989, which ended the civil war, reapportioned the Parliament to provide for equal representation of Christians and Muslims, with each electing 64 of the 128 deputies.

Although distributed confessionally, all members, regardless of their religious faith, are elected by universal suffrage, forcing politicians to seek support from outside of their own religious communities, unless their co-religionists overwhelmingly dominate their particular constituency.

The changes stipulated by the Taif Agreement are set out in the table below*:

Parliament of Lebanon seat allocation

Confession	Before Taif	After Taif
Maronite Catholic	30	34
Eastern Orthodox	11	14
Melkite Catholic	6	8
Armenian Orthodox	4	5
Armenian Catholic	1	1
Protestant	1	1
Other Christian minorities	1	1
Total Christians	54	64
Sunni	20	27
Shi'ite	19	27
Alawite	0	2
Druze	6	8
Total Muslims + Druze	45	64
Total	99	128

Political parties

Main article: List of political parties in Lebanon

Numerous political parties exist in Lebanon. Many parties are little more than ad hoc electoral lists, formed by negotiation among influential local figures representing the various confessional communities; these lists usually function only for the purpose of the election, and do not form identifiable groupings in the parliament subsequently. Other parties are personality-based, often comprising followers of a present or past political leader or warlord. Few parties are based, in practice, on any particular ideology, although in theory most claim to be. No single party has ever won more than 12.5 percent of the total number of seats in the Parliament, and until 2005 no coalition ever won more than a third of the total. The general election held in 2005, however, resulted in a clear majority (72 seats out of 128) being won by the alliance led by Saad Hariri (son of murdered former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri); half of these were held by Hariri's own Current for the Future.

Additionally, Hezbollah won 14 seats [1].

Speaker

Main article: List of Speakers of the Parliament of Lebanon

The Speaker of the Parliament, who by custom must be a Shi'a Muslim, is now elected to a four-year term. Prior to the Taif Agreement, he was elected to a two-year term. He forms part of a "troika" together with the President (required to be a Maronite Christian) and the Prime Minister (a Sunni Muslim). The privileges of the Speaker are unusually powerful, relative to other democratic systems. The current speaker is the leader of the Amal Party, Nabih Berri.

Electoral system

Main article: Elections in Lebanon

The system of multi-member constituencies has been criticized over the years by many politicians, who claim that it is easy for the government to gerrymander the boundaries. The Baabda-Aley constituency, established for the 2000 election, is a case in point: the predominantly Druze area of Aley (in the east of Beirut) were combined, in a single constituency, with the predominantly Christian area of Baabda. The same thing happens in the South, meaning that although several seats within the constituency are allocated to Christians, they have to appeal to an electorate which is predominantly Muslim. Many opposition politicians, mostly Christians, have claimed that the constituency boundaries were extensively gerrymandered in the elections of 1992, 1996, 2000, 2005 and 2009. There have also been calls for the creation of a single, country-wide constituency. Unless and until the myriad religious and political factions can agree on an alternative electoral system, the controversy is unlikely to be resolved; however, there is a chance that the new formed parliament could turn the system into a House of Lords and House of Parliament, abolishing the Ta'ef Accord; however this seems unlikely, as the Western-backed ruling majority do not see the Doha Accord (an agreement by past Lebanese rivals to end the 2006–2008 crisis) to be essential or positive, as it is beneficial for the opposition in giving them veto power.

Results

Main article: Lebanese general election, 2009

See also

• Members of the 2009-2013 Lebanese Parliament
• Members of the 2005-2009 Lebanese Parliament
• Politics of Lebanon
• List of legislatures by country

External links

• Template:Ar icon Template:Fr iconOfficial website