Between two proposals to amend the electoral law and a dispute surrounding the draft law on “financial regularization and recovery of deposits,” Parliament returns to center stage as an arena of confrontation between lofty slogans and a political, security, and economic reality weighed down by crises. From mandatory voting under penalty of a fine, to turning governorates into electoral districts, to a clash over the mechanism for passing the financial gap law, all these tracks converge on a single question: do legal texts produce real reform, or are they used as a façade for power struggles and the paralysis of institutions?
Mandatory Voting: Sacred Duty or Additional Burden?
The proposal to amend Article 3 of Electoral Law No. 44 of 2017 has reopened the file of compulsory voting by replacing the logic of a right with that of an obligation, introducing a fine for those who fail to vote without a legitimate excuse. These excuses are defined as legal impediment, illness or disability, public service duties, and force majeure. The proposal goes further by assigning polling stations the task of drafting a report listing non-voters and referring it to the single criminal judge under summary procedures.
In principle, the proposal rests on an old idea: representative legitimacy weakens when authorities are built on modest participation rates, and broad participation enhances the soundness and credibility of representation. It also invokes Lebanese precedents from the 1950s, when voting was compulsory for certain categories, with fines and similar excuses.
The paradox, however, is that the proposal—under critical reading—reproduces the same slogan without addressing the obstacles that make voting in Lebanon a burdensome act for wide segments of society. Polling stations remain inadequately equipped for persons with disabilities; voters are still tied to their place of registration despite internal migration and changes in residence; political pressure resurfaces through money, weapons, clientelism, and inciting rhetoric. Then came the repercussions of the recent war, with its destruction and displacement, adding a new obstacle to actual access to the ballot box.
Here, the megacenter emerges as a well-known solution, but one frozen by political disagreement among blocs. This means that compulsory voting could turn, instead of enhancing participation, into a burden on those who cannot comply, and a punishment within an unfair electoral structure or an environment that does not ensure equal freedom of choice.
Implementation: Overloaded Courts and Ineffective Fines
Compulsory voting automatically raises the question of implementation. The proposal grants the single criminal judge jurisdiction over violations, akin to comparative experiences, but applying this model in Lebanon runs into a clear practical obstacle: the likelihood of overcrowded courts, at a time when the judiciary already suffers from shortages in human and material resources.
The text also notes that the effectiveness of compulsion requires an integrated enforcement system, including the ability to submit excuses in advance, mechanisms to limit file inflation, graduated penalties, and judicial discretion allowing fines not to be imposed under certain circumstances. Conversely, expanding compulsion to include residents and expatriates could strip the penalty of its deterrent effect due to the accumulation of cases and delayed rulings, causing the stated goal to be lost and the text to turn into a declaration without implementation.
In the background of the debate looms a fundamental philosophical question: does the citizen possess the right to abstain from voting as part of freedom of political expression, or is voting a function exercised in the name of the nation within the theory of national sovereignty, which makes the deputy a representative of the entire nation? This tension between national sovereignty and individual freedom remains unresolved, while the text warns that compulsion may lead to blank ballots, random votes, or deliberate invalidation, stripping it of any democratic utility.
Governorates as Districts: From the Spirit of Taif to a Tool of Political Bickering
Alongside the proposal for mandatory voting, another amendment proposal emerges, advocating the adoption of governorates as electoral districts instead of the current large and small districts. Proponents present seemingly reformist arguments: simplifying the system, limiting manipulation of districting, and enhancing clarity.
Critical reading, however, places this proposal in its historical and political context. The Taif Agreement spoke of elections based on governorates, but tied this to reconsideration of administrative divisions—making the slogan loose in a country where governorates can be created or their boundaries amended by law. With the establishment of governorates of predominantly sectarian character, expanding the district loses its presumed effect in fostering cross-sectarian cooperation and may even produce opposite results under a proportional system coupled with a preferential vote.
More importantly, the debate over governorates has turned into material for political and sectarian trading—raised by one camp and rejected by another—not as a technical reform, but as a tool of balances and exclusion. Thus, the proposal becomes part of a game of improving bargaining positions, not part of a comprehensive electoral reform project.
The Financial Gap: Interpretive Dispute or Pretext for Obstruction?
On a parallel track, a constitutional dispute has surfaced over the draft law on financial regularization and recovery of deposits, after its approval by the Council of Ministers and referral to Parliament. The core of the dispute revolves around whether the draft requires approval by two-thirds of the الوزراء, as it allegedly falls under the “basic matters” stipulated in Article 65 of the Constitution, or whether it can pass by a simple majority.
Legal reading indicates that the problem does not lie in ambiguity of the text itself, but in the use of interpretive chaos to obstruct institutions. The Council of Ministers adopted an interpretation allowing approval by simple majority, and the President of the Republic signed the referral decree within the constitutional deadline, reflecting an exercise of his powers. Parliament remains the arena for political resolution, where the project should be discussed in committees and then in the general assembly, rather than being turned into material for preemptive obstruction.
When these three tracks—mandatory voting, governorates as districts, and the financial gap law—are viewed together, a single picture emerges: projects adorned with the vocabulary of reform, yet colliding with an unprepared electoral reality, a balance of power that controls the legislative path, and a political environment capable of turning any text into a tool of conflict and paralysis.
Lebanon’s crisis is not a shortage of ideas, but the absence of the will to build an integrated system that makes law a means of change, not merely a beautiful title added to the archive of crises.
