Daily Star - Parliament Fails To Lower Voting Age

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Parliament on Monday shot down a bill to lower voting age from 21 to 18, a proposal which has sparked fears of an upheaval of the multi-confessional country’s power-sharing political structure.
Only 34 out of Lebanon’s 128-strong Parliament voted in favor of the bill, while 66 abstained and one voted against. Twenty-seven MPs did not attend the session.
Lowering the voting age to 18 has been an issue for years, with Hizbullah and Amal pushing for the measure as their young followers are believed to outnumber those of other factions in Lebanon, which has not had an official census since 1932.
The controversial bill has sparked fears of a shake-up of Lebanon’s political structure, a complex power-sharing system between Christians and Muslims that has helped preserve a fragile peace since the end of the 1975-90 Civil War.
Analysts estimate that lowering the voting age would add more than 50,000 Christians to the electorate, mainly Maronites, and about 175,000 Muslims, roughly equally split between Shiites and Sunnis.
Christian Maronite MPs have demanded that Lebanon allow expatriates to cast ballots abroad if the voting age is lowered, banking on their ability to rally their diaspora to help balance out internal demographics.
On Monday, Future Movement, Lebanese Forces, Phalange Party and Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) MPs abstained from voting over the amendment while Hizbullah’s Loyalty to Resistance and Amal Liberation and Development blocs voted in favor of the law.
Meanwhile, MPs of the Progressive Socialist (PSP) Party also cast ballots in favor of the amendment while the rest of the Democratic Gathering bloc members headed by PSP leader MP Walid Jumblatt abstained from voting.
“We made sure that the amendment was subject to consensus and we only came forward with it after we received the approval of the major parliamentary blocs … as it was approved by a majority in Parliament and among Cabinet members; but I do not know what changed today,” Hizbullah MP Hassan Fadllalah added.
However, Future Movement lawmaker Ammar Houri stressed that parliamentary blocs had agreed last March to pass the amendment but tied it, based on a political rather than legal accord, to the issue of allowing expatriates’ to vote.
In response to Houri, Berri said lowering the voting age could be implemented in the municipal polls but added that Parliament could agree to pass the amendment during the current session but to be implemented in the 2013 parliamentary elections.
In addition, Amal Movement MP Ali Hassan Khalil said that his party believed in the expatriates’ right to vote but added that this right should not be tied to the youth’s right to participate in the elections.
“The political regime would fail every time a certain right would obstruct another right,” Khalil added.
Meanwhile, March 14 and Batroun MP Butros Harb said certain parties had expressed concerns about approving the amendment for the time being and thus decided on the need for postponement until consensus over the issue was reached.
“No one is against the content of the bill but the context is problematic,” FPM MP Alain Aoun told AFP.
“Reform should be comprehensive and not selective,” said Aoun, whose bloc is allied with Hizbullah.
“We have to show our people that there is no subjectivity in dealing with sensitive issues that affect all Lebanese.”
Aoun said his camp also was pushing for a law that would allow descendants of Lebanese emigrants who did not hold citizenship to reclaim Lebanese nationality.
Maronites are currently estimated at around 30 percent of the 4 million population.
On another note, Parliament elected members of the higher council to try presidents and ministers and approved several draft laws passed by the Cabinet. – The Daily Star, with AFP