LEBANON
Elections and Parliament (legislative elections of Aug.-Sept. 2000)

The Parliament of Lebanon is unicameral.

• Name of Parliament: National Assembly (Majlis Al-Nuwaab)
• Number of seats: 128 seats equally divided between Christians and Muslims (see Taif Agreement):
  • Maronite Christians: 38
  • Greek Orthodox Christians: 14
  • Greek Catholic Christians: 3
  • Greek Melkite Christians: 3
  • Armenian Catholic Christians: 1
  • Armenian Orthodox Christians: 1
  • Other Christian minorities: 4
  • Shia Muslims: 27
  • Sunni Muslims: 27
  • Druze: 8
  • Alawi: 2
• Term of legislature: 5 years
• Required age for voting: 21
• Required age for membership: 25

The 128 members of the Assembly are elected by simple majority vote. There are 5 multi-member constituencies: Mount Lebanon (35 seats), North lebanon (28), Beirut (19), South Lebanon and Nabatieh (23), Bekaa (23); Mount Lebanon is divided in 6 electoral districts.

Citizens vote for party lists which take into account the pre-established distribution of seats among the religious communities. The elected candidate is the one who obtains the simple plurality of valid votes by not only his/her confessional group, but by all the voters in the constituency concerned. Vote-splitting is allowed, but this is only possible within the same community. Electors may furthermore strike out as many names as they wish from the ballot, ultimately for only one candidate. Multi-confessional representation depends on the size of the constituency; the larger it is, the more chance of its encompassing varied confessions.

Voting is not compulsory.

The first round of the last parliamentary elections took place on the 27 August 2000 for Mount Lebanon and North Lebanon, and the 3 September 2000 for the provinces of the Bekaa, Beirut, and the South al-Nabatieh, including the strip of land occupied by Israel from 1978 until May 2000, whose voters went to the polls for the first time.

The President of the Assembly is Nabih Berri.

There are 3 women sitting in the Chamber, representing 2.3% of the total deputies.

Former legislatives elections (18 August - 15 September 1996) :

See also :

• LEBANON
• LEBANON, general elections of 1992

• National Assembly

(June 2001)