Political participation is one of the fundamental rights of citizenship exercised to contribute in defining strategic options for holding human rights violators accountable. Yet, it does not mean that citizens should be in agreement on all issues and challenges and on how to address them. Their conflicting interests put them in different positions, which may sometimes be contradictory.
The main challenge lies in managing diversity and differences peacefully, no matter how extreme, without affecting stability and civil peace, and in transforming all forms of diversity into incentives to seek solutions that respond to the interests of different groups.
Community dialogue (1) is one of the best ways of exchanging ideas and opinions. It is a tool for expressing opinions and exchanging views. However, it is governed by principles and factors that should be adhered to if intentions are bona fide and progress is the common goal.
The cornerstone of community dialogue is Democracy that is based on recognizing and respecting opinions in order to find compromises. In this manner, the Parliament – among other institutions – plays a role in maintaining dialogue giving it a legal and institutional dimension, given that it is one of the three branches forming the foundation of the state structure. It functions as a representative of the various social groups with their varied compositions. Also, it is the legislative authority that oversees the executive body, it adopts the state budget as an expression of the national vision, policies and programs of action, and it elects the President of the Republic every six years. If Parliament’s representation of all the components of society is real with its members safeguarding the interests of the groups they represent, dialogue will be conducted within institutions peacefully and will have greater chances of finding solutions. On the other side, if representation is weak, the ability to manage dialogue decreases and the confidence of the citizens is lost. As a result, the citizens lose confidence in the government with the laws failing to protect rights, making it easy to violate them, thus threatening the stability and civil peace.
Since 2005, Lebanon has experienced several occasions that threatened the civil peace due to the negligence of laws and institutions among which is not recognizing the results of elections leading to the disruption of dialogue within institutions.
General elections are held regularly every four years, to elect members of parliament who will take on the responsibilities of the legislative authority during that period, conducting national dialogue on behalf of the groups they represent. The importance of periodic elections aims to affirm the term of the mandate as defined by law in four years, and having elections is a tool to hold MPs accountable for their performance, either by re-electing them or by electing others.
The democracy of elections is measured by international standards that summarize long experiences and practices, for example: fair representation, freedom of choice and integrity in a way that does not affect voter’s choices, and independence of the management body.
Based on the above, we present the following observations that affected the democracy of the recent elections in Lebanon.
The impartiality of the organizing body is achieved by either establishing an independent management body that starts its functions as soon as voters’ lists are prepared and continues its work until results are announced or appealed, or by forming a neutral government with no ministers running for the elections. However, in the recent elections, the Minister of Interior was a candidate and at the same time was directly responsible for its organization, along with 15 other ministers, headed by the Prime Minister. These ministers campaigned without ceasing to perform their ministerial duties. Although, the Lebanese law requires mayors to resign three months prior to the end date of the Parliament’s mandate while the specified period for resignation is six months for first and second-grade employees (with the exception of University professors) and two years for all judges regardless of position to avoid conflicts of interest.
The Electoral Law 44/2017, in which the Parliamentary elections were conducted on May 6, 2018, is based on a proportional representation formula, which is theoretically the best way to achieve fair representation, allowing candidates a share in accordance with their size without excluding any component.
But how was Proportionality stripped of its main components in the last Lebanese Elections?
The Law divides Lebanon into 15 «major constituencies». This criterion for determining the major constituencies varied. For example; in certain cases, governorates were taken to be as the basis (for example; the governorate of Baalbek-Hermel and Akkar), while in others it was districts based (for example; the districts of Zahle, Metn and Baabda). On other occasions, several districts were grouped into one constituency (four districts in North Lebanon 3 and two districts in most of the other constituencies).
In addition, the criteria dividing the major constituencies into minor constituencies also varied. For example, the Baalbek-Hermel governorate remained one major constituency, and two districts were grouped into one minor constituency (Marjayoun and Hasbaya) within the major constituency of South Lebanon 3. In addition, two districts were grouped to form South Lebanon 1 while leaving them as two separate minor constituencies each without any geographical connection between them (Sidon and Jezzine). Some of the districts were deemed major constituencies (Metn and Baabda) and two districts were grouped to form one major constituency (West Bekaa and Rashaya). Also, Beirut was divided into east and west along the same lines of the Lebanese civil war.
The law adopted the single preferential vote applied within minor constituencies, which explains the gerrymandering of minor and major constituencies. So, minor constituencies were grouped into major ones to raise the electoral quotient without affecting the preferential vote and to prevent opposition lists from «infiltrating» the results. The political forces had to join unprincipled alliances to raise the quotient, and accordingly the competition for the preferential vote turned into competition within the same list and even within the same party, confusing voters and complicating the election process. Thus, citizens refrained from participation rather than being motivated by proportionality as a result of what was seen in lists formation and heard during the electoral campaigns.
Another adoption was that of a variable electoral threshold, i.e. the minimum share of the votes required to win a seat. In the South Lebanon 3 constituency, it was as high as 20% (voters turnout was close to 50%), while in Beirut 1 it was approximately 5% (where turnout was about 31%). This disparity in the threshold rate discriminates between the candidates and the representation of citizens, given that 20% for a threshold is very high – almost the highest in the world – preventing change of the status quo.
Further, this Law lacks fair representation in two ways: the distribution of voters across constituencies without any consideration for balance (ranging between 122,000 in South Lebanon 1 and 460,000 in South Lebanon 3), and the distribution of seats across constituencies (ranging between 5 seats in South Lebanon 1 and 13 in Mount Lebanon 3(2)), which creates an imbalance in the representation weight of a single seat. For instance, in South Lebanon 1, it was 24,000, while it was 42,000 in Mount Lebanon 3.
The confessional representation made it all the more difficult to form lists and distribute the preferential votes. Moreover, the absence of a gender quota reflected on women’s participation, as there were 113 women candidates, 86 of them were able to make it on the lists, and only 4.6% won (6 women) – another proof of the absence of fairness.
Adding to the remarks, the spending ceiling in some constituencies was as high as 1.7 million USD per candidate(3), making the total spending available in all constituencies and for all candidates about 650 million USD, according to the report of the Lebanese Transparency Association (LTA). More importantly, very high prices were set for media coverage and advertising campaigns providing better opportunities for the financially capable candidates... Furthermore, Article 62(2) makes an exception for donations made by candidates and parties for three consecutive years, thus embedding political bribery and turning the Lebanese into nationals of a state that does not respect the rights of its citizens. Several cases were recorded of seats being bought on the lists by those financially competent candidates, which in turn affected fair representation.(4)
The rhetoric used in the electoral campaigns did not adhere to the most basic standards of the Law, such as libel and slander, sectarian and religious incitement, and the use of hate speech and intimidation. Those liable are the candidates who have violated the Electoral Law and the Penal Code, and the media because they did not refrain from publishing these materials given that it violates the Publications Law.
In addition, the election silence was not respected, although by law candidates and their machinery should refrain from carrying on with the election campaign starting from 12:00 AM and until the end of the process. Thus, on the day of elections, the role of the media is limited to covering the electoral process (Article 78).
Another clear violation of the Law (article 87) is going beyond the set time for closing the ballot boxes which is 7:00 PM. Article 97, which allows voters on the polling station’s premises to vote, subject to being recorded in the report, was used to justify this extension. The Minister of Interior and Municipalities interpreted the «surroundings of the polling stations» as being part of the courtyard, thus allowing those present there to vote. This is an ambiguous formula that confounds the polling station’s premises with its surroundings. As a result, the elections went on late into the night in some constituencies, so preliminary results were coming out from the Higher Registration Committees while the voting was processing in some polling stations.
As a result of the incitement to sectarian strife that accompanied the campaigns, two incidents marked the seriousness of the situation. The first took place in a Beirut neighborhood after the announcement of the results by the Higher Registration Committees, when the supporters of some parties rallied and ripped pictures and ads of figures on competing lists using foul language and started small fires, causing turmoil. The fact that officials intervened and arrested them suggests that they had acted under their direction and stopped on orders from them. The second incident was a dispute in the city of Choueifat (Mount Lebanon 4) between two supporters of competing lists of the same religious confession. The fight led to the launch of a firecracker targeting one party’s offices and killing one of the staff. One of the winners covered for the criminal, who remains un-arrested, which escalates tensions.
Democracy, fair representation, and free participation are the guarantors of stability and civil peace. The violation of justice, equality and respect for the other, the promotion of hate speech, incitement to strife, and slander and defamation, and giving impunity to those breaking the law are all factors that threaten the civil peace, ultimately leading to more pressure within a society that is marked by diversity, differences and tensions.
*(1) Community dialogue is an advanced version of a three-party social dialogue: the state, businesses and workers. Social dialogue is a mechanism for resolving disputes between workers and businesses under the auspices of a “theoretically” neutral state. When dialogue takes on issues broader than labor relations between workers and businesses, such as identity, governance mechanisms and instruments, or major economic decisions to deal with crises such as unemployment, debt, disability, inflation, tax policy, social protection and unemployment protection, social groups that represent the interests of broader social forces than just workers should be engaged.
(2) From the website of the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities created for the 2018 elections www.elections.gov.lb
(3) 5,000 LBP for each voter in major constituencies, 150 million LBP as a lump-sum for each candidate and 150 million LBP for the list on each candidate.
(4) The media reported cases of bribery and vote buying, and the observers from the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE) and LTA recorded cases without being able to gather evidence due to difficulties related to obtaining and documenting them accurately.