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Electoral/Political Party Reform: Taif Accord

Implementations

Electoral/Political Party Reform – 1989

Electoral/political party reform did not take place in 1989.

Electoral/Political Party Reform – 1990

In August 1990, the legislature (based on Taif recommendations) made constitutional revisions including the provision of related seats in the parliament. According to the revisions, the parliamentary seats will be equally divided between Christians and Muslims in an in an expanded 108-member Parliament.[fn]”Human Rights Report- Lebanon,” U.S. Dept. of State Dispatch, February 1, 1991.[/efn_note] The seats were further divided between all of Lebanon’s 18 officially recognized religious sects.[fn]”Lebanon Election 2009 – Lebanon’s election system,” accessed April 5, 2011, http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/lebanon2009/2009/06/20096211481936043… The increases of nine seats (from 99 to 108) were to be Muslim seats allocated to areas with Muslim demographic concentration.

Electoral/Political Party Reform – 1991

It was only in 1991 that the parliament passed Law 51 allocating the increased seats.

Electoral/Political Party Reform – 1992

According to Khazen, the balance of power both within Lebanon and between Beirut and Damascus had changed significantly by 1992. “Amid speculation and rumours in the press about the number of deputies, the Council of Ministers decided to adopt 134, an addition of 26 to the 108 agreed on in the Ta’if document. The stated reason for raising the number of deputies was to modify the representation of some sects (Druze and Greek Catholic). The tacit reason was to make the number 128 more acceptable to its opponents.”¹ The government adopted Law 154 in 1992, raising the number of parliamentary seats to 128 instead of 108 and thus adding 29 new seats to the prewar parliament.² The additional nine and twenty nine seats were allocated in the following manner:

Maronite from 30 to 34, Greek Orthodox from 11 to 13, Greek Catholic from 6 to 8, Armenian Orthodox from 4 to 5, American catholic from 1 to 0, Protestant from 1 to 0, Minorities from 1 to 0, Sunni from 20 to 27, ShiÕa from 19 to 27, Druze from 6 to 8, and Alawite from 0 to 2.³

On 24 July 1992, the Lebanese government set a date for Lebanon’s first general elections since 1972 amidst strong Christian opposition, as elections were set to go before a Syrian troop withdrawal. Despite strong opposition and requests to withhold elections until the security situation had improved, elections were held on August 23 in Beirut, on August 30 in Mount Lebanon, and on September 6 in southern Lebanon. Elections were held for Governorates as agreed in the Taif accord. The elections were plagued by violence and fraud, and the abstention of Christians created a wider gap between the Christian and Muslims.⁴

The only reform that materialized was the increase in the size of the legislature from 99 to 128 to balance the representation of Christian and Muslims.

Farid el. Khazen, “Lebanon’s First Postwar Parliamentary Election, 1992: An Imposed Choice,” 1992, accessed April 5, 2011, http://almashriq.hiof.no/ddc/projects/pspa/elections92-part1.html.
Bassel F. Salloukh, “The Limits of Electoral Engineering in Divided Societies: Elections in Postwar Lebanon,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 39 (2006): 644.
Farid el. Khazen, “Lebanon’s First Postwar Parliamentary Election.”
“Christian-Muslim Gap Widens in Aftermath Of Lebanon Election,” Christian Science Monitor, September 11, 1992.