Elections in Lebanon

Lebanon's national legislature is called the Chamber of Deputies (Arabic: مجلس النواب, romanized: Majlis An-Nouwab).

Since the elections of 1992 (the first since the reforms of the Taif Agreement of 1989) removed the built-in majority previously enjoyed by Christians, the Parliament is composed of 128 seats with a term of four years.

They do not represent only their co-religionists, however; all candidates in a particular constituency, regardless of religious affiliation, must receive a plurality of the total vote, which includes followers of all confessions.

The system was designed to minimize inter-sectarian competition and maximize cross-confessional cooperation: candidates are opposed only by co-religionists, but must seek support from outside their own faith in order to be elected.

And, on 5 November 2014, the Parliament enacted another extension, thus keeping its mandate for an additional 31 months, until 20 June 2017,[6] and on 16 June 2017 the Parliament in turn extended its own mandate an additional 11 months to hold elections according to a much-anticipated reformed electoral law.

According to the Lebanese constitution[7] and the electoral law of 2017,[8] elections are held on a Sunday during the 60 days preceding the end of the sitting parliament's mandate.

The previous system (under which the 128 members of parliament were elected from 26 multi-member constituencies under multiple non-transferable vote, and the candidates with the highest number of votes within each religious community were elected)[9] with a new electoral law instituting proportional representation in 15 multi-member constituencies while still maintaining the confessional distribution.

Thirty to sixty days before the expiration of a president's term, the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies calls for a special session to indirectly elect a new president, which selects a candidate for a six-year term on a secret ballot in which a two-thirds majority is required to elect.

This stage involves negotiations among political parties regarding ministerial positions in which it must be split between Muslims and Christians and a share for the president, parliamentary majority and opposition.