Lebanon’s new and complex electoral system baffles voters

To some voters, Lebanon’s new and complex electoral system was confusing. (AN Photo / Tariq Keblawi)

• Lebanon's electoral reform law was meant to give independents a bigger chance to win, but the complexity of the system appeared to have even deterred people from casting their ballot.
• Under the system voters cast ballots both for their favored list of candidates and a preferred candidate on that list. But the lists group together candidates who in many cases would traditionally have been rivals.

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s politics is famous for its deep divisions, but in this election there was one thing that managed to unite voters — confusion over the new electoral system.
The complex system merges proportional representation with quotas for each religious group to maintain the country’s sectarian balance among the 128 seats in parliament.
Under this arrangement, the majority system has been replaced and the threshold needed to win an election lowered — a plan that should benefit independents and reformers, easing the grip on the power of the country’s main clans.
But in some cases on Sunday it appeared to have even deterred people from casting their ballot.
“I’d explain the new electoral law to you if I understood it myself, but I don’t understand it,” Ali Tarheely, an employee at the American University Hospital, told Arab News.
“Preferential votes, not preferential votes … I don’t know, it’s confusing.”
Under the system voters cast ballots both for their favored list of candidates and a preferred candidate on that list. But the lists group together candidates who in many cases would traditionally have been rivals.
“I really don’t know. We are obliged to vote for the whole candidate list which has candidates that we don’t want to vote for. I understand the elections, I just don’t understand the law,” Maya, a store manager on Beirut’s Hamra street, said.
Some voters, such as self-employed Rudolph, believed the new system is helpful and better than the previous one, but still not good enough to inspire Lebanese people to go out and vote to make a change in the government.
Others are sure that the system, adopted into law last year after years of negotiations, will not make a difference and only keep power within the grasp of the political elite.
“Once they remove and erase sectarianism completely, then the country will see changes,” mini-market owner George told Arab News. For now, he added, “it’s just thieves coming and going.”