A law is born

ENAR

Since appointing the National Commission on Parliamentary Electoral Law (the Fouad Boutros Commission) in 2005, Lebanese politicians have been “working” on an electoral law that employs proportional representation (PR), a system that allocates seats in Parliament based on the percentage of votes a candidate list receives. PR is more representative than a majoritarian or first-past-the-post voting system. In all past Lebanese elections, the list with the most votes won all the seats on offer, with their opponents getting nothing (even if a competing list received 49 percent of the vote). PR gives voice to that 49 percent and increases the chance for independent candidates to actually get elected. However, it undeniably threatens the established power structure. No surprise then, that after 13 years of studying how to best adopt a PR system for Lebanon, the law unveiled in mid-June introduces PR, but at the same time does its utmost to