No, No, No, to the Orthodox gathering election law


While the proposed election law dubbed the Orthodox gathering law offers a simple solution to a serious problem, the fact so many voters are not fairly represented in the existing electoral system, the medicine in this case will likely kill the patient.

 
I am a Latin Christian from Ras Beirut, I am classified under the broad umbrella of ‘minorities’ which means my vote has little to no impact in my district, or so I’m told. The fault does not lie with the democratic process itself, it lies with the way parliamentary seats are distributed on a sectarian basis for each district. Instead of any citizen from any sect running in any district to be elected (or not) by any citizen of voting age in that district no matter what their sect based on the principle of ‘one-man-one-vote’, our system makes voting for some almost pointless.

 
Our system is so convoluted that understanding it is like trying to correctly guess which one of the three cards on the table is the queen of hearts!

 
There is no doubt that there is a great deal of injustice in the present system, I and those in my situation should know. But, the Orthodox gathering law is not the answer, its actually part of the problem. It’s like tilting the Earth to fix the problem of a lopsided wall!

 
In Lebanon the homogenization of Christians or individual Christian sects into one block to face other sects actually deepens sectarian rifts and makes sectarian divisions something pervasive. The deep sectarian divisions we see today in the country have to be classified as aberrations, something that will pass eventually.

 
Maronite voting for Maronite, Orthodox voting for Orthodox, Catholic voting for Catholic, like voting for like reduces politics and the parliamentary process to a council of religious figureheads who speak on behalf of their sects for the narrow interests of those sect. Who then will speak for the wider national good that is supposed to transcend individual sectarian concerns? Who then will speak for those who choose not to have their religious figureheads speak on their behalf?

 
Parliament is not supposed to represent sects, it’s supposed to speak for every single one of us as citizens not as members of a religion. Parliament is not a council of religious figureheads, its not a bazaar where sects argue over privileges and shares of the national pie, its where wider national issues should be discussed.

 
Instead of a law made to fit the sectarian system, which would turn out as bad as the sectarian system it was designed for, we should implement the Taif constitution fully, take sectarianism out of Parliament, and set up an upper house of parliament instead where sects are represented. This does not require promulgation of new laws to achieve, it’s already stipulated in the Taif constitution, our MPs just have to implement it, but none have the courage to do it. Like the people they represent, MPs are fearful of letting go of sectarianism because then they would have no issues to argue over, how will they play politics then?

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