The Lebanese Consociational System

To start, Lebanon is a parliamentary democratic republic base on the compatibility of its sectarian component.

As we know, there are 18 different denominations in Lebanon, so the best solution is to have Lebanese consociationalism; this consociationalism is based on Power sharing, especially consociational power-sharing.

Thus, the power-sharing depends on dividing the three main offices of the government between the three main sects in Lebanon: Sunni, Shiite, and Maronite.

To explain, the three main offices of the Lebanese government are the: Prime Ministerial, the Presidency, and the Parliament speaker.

A Catholic Maronite President heads the presidency, the prime minister is Sunni, and a Shiite President runs the parliament speaker's position.

Adding to this, according to the Lebanese consociational system, the total number of seats in the parliament is 128, which are harmonically divided between Muslims and Christians, which means 64 seats for Muslims and 64 for Christians.

Adding to this, Lebanese consociationalism can't be able to continue in its stability, and the Lebanese strength might break someday if the challenge of this system increases.

There's a dependency on foreign countries. For example, when the Syrian civil war began, the Lebanese people or the Lebanese sects started to divide, and we started seeing a conflict between them.

To explain, when the Syrian civil war began, we started to see a conflict between Sunni and Shiites because the majority of the Sunni people were against the Assad regime; on the other hand, we know the majority of the Shiites stood by the Assad regime.

So we can say that Lebanese consociationalism might not be able to continue in its success because we have a domestic reason which is the conflict between the sects within the state, and a regional reason which is these sects support foreign countries.

Finally, the Lebanese people should depend on a new system, which is a secular system, so I’m going to give two specific proposals to discuss the sophisticated design that should be applied today:

First, we should try to separate religion from the state, so secularism distinguishes between freedom of spiritual or religious expression in the public sphere, which is a legitimate and fundamental freedom for democratic dialogue, and domination of the public sphere, which is an illegal issue.

Representatives of these different spiritual options have the right to participate as such in the public debate, like any component of society, and then both religions and state benefit from this separation.

So the former focuses on its spiritual mission and finds room for freedom of expression, and any sectarian bond does not bind the second, and it belongs to all citizens.

Second, we should focus on this system in broadening the circle of the principle of separation of powers (Judicial, Executive, and Legislative branches.)

At last, the secular system allows educated people with great nationalism to lead Lebanon, which will decrease corruption and confessionalism.

Edited By Whitney Edna Ibe 

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