Lebanon » Politics

Lebanon is a republic in which the three highest offices are reserved for members of specific religious groups:

• the President must be a Maronite Catholic Christian
• the Prime Minister must be a Sunni Muslim, and
• the Speaker of the Parliament must be a Shi'a Muslim.

This arrangement is part of the "National Pact" an unwritten agreement which was established in 1943 during meetings between Lebanon's first president (a Maronite) and its first prime minister (a Sunni), although it was not formalized in the Lebanese Constitution until 1990, following the Taif Agreement.

The pact included a promise by the Christians not to seek French protection and to accept Lebanon's "Arab face", and a Muslim promise to recognize independence and legitimacy of the Lebanese state in its 1920 boundaries and to renounce aspirations for union with Syria. This pact was thought at the time to be an interim compromise, necessary until Lebanon formed its own sense of a national identity. Its continued existence and the fallout from subsequent civil wars continue to dominate politics in Lebanon. The pact also stipulated that seats in the Parliament would be allocated by religion and region, in a ratio of 6 Christians to 5 Muslims, a ratio based on the 1932 census, which was taken at a time when Christians still had a slight majority. The Taif Agreement adjusted the ratio to grant equal representation to followers of the two religions.

The Constitution grants the people the right to change their government. However, from the mid-1970s until the parliamentary elections in 1992, civil war precluded the exercise of political rights. According to the constitution, direct elections must be held for the parliament every four years. The last parliament election was in 2000; the election due to be held in 2004 was postponed for one year.