Parliament of Lebanon


The Lebanese Parliament is the unicameral national parliament of the Republic of Lebanon. There are 128 members elected to a four-year term in multi-member constituencies, apportioned among Lebanon's diverse Christian and Muslim denominations but with half of the seats reserved for Christians and half for Muslims per Constitutional Article 24. Lebanon has universal adult suffrage. The parliament's major functions are to elect the President of the republic, to approve the government, and to approve laws and expenditure.
The Parliament was most recently elected on 15 May 2022. While terms are four years long, parliaments are able to extend the own terms: the parliament elected in June 2009 did so on three separate occasions, delaying the next election until May 2018 while a new electoral law was prepared. According to the Lebanese constitution and the electoral law of 2017, elections are held on a Sunday during the 60 days preceding the end of the sitting parliament's mandate, with the next one due on a Sunday falling between 22 March 2026 and 22 May 2026.
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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 a form of consociationalism.
In elections held between 1932 and 1972, 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 of 1989 are set out in the table below:
Electoral district under 2017 Election Law
Beirut I 8111311
Beirut II 1162111
Bekaa I 7111121
Bekaa II 621111
Bekaa III 102611
Mount Lebanon I 817
Mount Lebanon II 84211
Mount Lebanon III 6213
Mount Lebanon IV 1324511
North I 73112
North II 118111
North III 1073
South I 5221
South II 761
South III 111811
Total128272782341485111
Source: ------------

Political parties

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 being won by the alliance led by Saad Hariri ; half of these were held by Hariri's own Future Movement.

Speaker

The Speaker of the Parliament, who by custom must be a Shi'a Muslim, is now elected to a four-year term, and is the highest office in the parliament. Prior to the Taif Agreement, they were elected to a two-year term. They form part of a "troika", together with the President and the Prime Minister. 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.

Deputy Speaker

The Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of Lebanon is the second highest-ranking official of the Lebanese Parliament. The office is always attributed to a Greek Orthodox practitioner.

Parliamentary committees

The Lebanese parliament has sixteen committees to facilitate the legislative process and provide oversight on specific areas of government policy. The Finance and Budget Committee is considered the most important, as it reviews the government's budget and spending plans. Other influential committees include Administration and Justice, Health and Labor, and Economy and Industry.
List of committees:

Electoral system

According to the Lebanese constitution and the electoral law of 2017, elections are held on a Sunday during the 60 days preceding the end of the sitting parliament's mandate. In June 2017 a new electoral law was passed. While in the previous system, the 128 members of parliament were elected from 26 multi-member constituencies under plurality block voting, and the candidates with the highest number of votes within each religious community were elected, the new electoral law instituted proportional representation in 15 multi-member constituencies while still maintaining the confessional distribution. However, the 7 out of the 15 of the electoral districts are divided into 2 or more 'minor districts'. Where applicable, preference vote is counted on the 'minor district' level.

Parliament building

The Parliament building was designed by Mardiros Altounian, who was also the architect of the Étoile clock tower. The building was completed in 1934 during the French Mandate period. Advised to build in the spirit of Lebanese tradition, the architect visited the Emirs' palaces in the Chouf Mountains. He also drew inspiration from the Oriental styles developed in Paris, Istanbul and Cairo at the turn of the 20th century.