BEIRUT: Campaign groups criticized Wednesday elements of Interior Minister Marwan Charbel’s draft electoral law, accusing it of “disappointing” those who had called for greater democracy in Lebanon.
The Civil Campaign for Electoral Reform, reacting to the release of Charbel’s long-awaited draft legislation, railed against the minister’s proposal that Lebanon be divided into between 10 and 14 voting districts ahead of the 2013 parliamentary elections.
In a statement, the group called on the government to reduce the proposed number of districts, “seeing that proportional voting requires districts with a greater number of seats in order to achieve just representation.”
The CCER, however, welcomed several proposals contained within the draft law, including the adoption of proportional representation voting, a quota for female candidates, pre-printed ballot papers and mechanisms to allow expat voters to take part in elections.
Civil society groups have long asked the government to allow an independent committee to monitor voting reform and scrutinize election funding. Under Charbel’s proposal, technocrats on the committee would fall under the supervision of the interior ministry.
“[The CCER] regrets the ministry’s project of not adopting the independent committee on the pretext of not having the necessary time,” the statement said. “The suggested supervision committee … is not sufficiently independent and lacks necessary objectivity.”
Reforms to Lebanon’s winner-take-all voting system have been discussed at length since the formation of in 2005 of the Boutros Commission, which suggested several amendments to electoral law.
Campaigners have called for proportional representation to supplant the status quo and have pressed politicians into producing legal proposals to be made into law before 2013.
Osama Safa, secretary general of the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections, said Charbel’s draft law offered only “truncated” reform.
“Calling for a women’s quota and pre-printed ballot papers and mechanisms for expatriate voting – these are worthy reforms, as well as a proportional voting system,” he told The Daily Star.
“But of all of these fail in front of the fact that there is no independent committee and supervision on this.”
In his news conference Monday, Charbel appeared to suggest that previous election monitoring committees had been unable to cope with the demands raised by a nationwide vote and voiced his hope that a “truly independent” body could be implemented before the 2017 elections.
Safa refuted the interior minister’s claim that there was insufficient time before mid-2013 for an independent committee to come up to speed.
“A committee should be tasked with the whole process and taken away from the political scene. The fact that [Charbel] has a small committee in his office reflects that his office controls the committee, which is very poor. It needs to be independent,” he added.
Safa also poured scorn on the proposal of introducing medium-sized voting districts.
“Fourteen districts would make the number of voters [in each district] much lower, which would render ineffective any proportional system,” he said. “Fourteen districts in a place like Lebanon make proportional representation redundant.
“We are going to multiply our efforts to make our voice heard that this is a bad law and that dealing with reforms in a truncated manner is counterproductive. In general, it is really disappointing,” Safa added
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