There has been a lot hoopla in the West and Saudi Arabia after their backed March 14 coalition of Sunni, Druze and right-wing Christian parties won the Lebanese election. The opposition is made up of the Shia parties Hezbollah and Amal and the Christian party Free Patriotic Movement led by General Michel Aoun.

Although March 14 did win over March 8, this was only due to Lebanese’s absurd sectarian-based electoral structuring. Lebanon is not a normal democracy with one-person, one-vote. Instead, politics in the country is all about community zero-sum calculations. Under the French mandate, the Christians were dominant in the country and Muslims were divided into two Maronite Catholic-lead political factions [exact opposite of the situation today where Christians are divided between a Sunni Muslim and a Shia Muslim lead factions]. Christian were once the majority in Lebanon, but as there numbers began to slip due to emigration and a lower birth rate than Muslims in the country, the Muslims began to demand better political representation. Prior to the Civil War of 1975-1990, the Lebanese government was structured as follows: the president, the most important post, had to be a Maronite, the prime minister a Sunni, the speaker of the parliament a Shia and the Christians were granted a 6:5 ratio of representation in the parliament. But at the Christian population slipped to below 50% and as Muslims, particularly Shias, became middle class, the latter began to challenge the political over-representation of the former. Muslims began to ask why they as middle class Lebanese whom are now more political conscious should not receive their proper political representation? Why should Christians receive 6 seats and Muslims 5 in the parliament based solely on an outdated 1932 consensus and not current demographics? At the time, Lebanese Christians were lead, and some still are, by the Nazi-inspired, fascistic Phalange [or Kataab in Arabic] party that opposed any concessions to Muslims. These right-wing Christians run on the platform of “quality versus quantity”. This is a racist view that holds that Christians are entitled to more political power regardless of the demographics because they are inherently superior to Muslims. Needless to say, Muslims did not take too kindly to such a world view and the nation plunged into a bloody 15-year civil war that left over 150,000 Lebanese dead.

The 1990 Taba resolution of the civil war brought about this new arrangement: the president will still remain Maronite, but the country’s leader will now be the Sunni prime minister, the speaker of parliament is still Shia while the parliament is now evenly divided in representation between Muslims and Christians.

Instead of instituting a secular arrangement that would end any future roots of conflict, the Lebanese political establishment seemed to learn nothing from the awful civil war and just tweaked a broken, self-defeating system. This system still gives Christians more arbitrary over-representation since they only make up 30-35% of the country. Shias are most underrepresented since they compromise 40% but have to slip their 50% of parliament seats with Sunnis. Because of this myopic system, the districts are weighted differently in terms of voters. A Christian MP runs in a less populated district than a Sunni one and a great deal less than a Shia one. The average Christian MP represents 18,000 people in contrast to the 28,000 that a Muslim one represents.

This means that a strong majority could vote for one party, but because of they district weighting that majority could be denied in parliament. This is exactly what happened in the recent elections. March 8 is made up of Shias and some Christians. March 14 of Sunnis, Druze and some Christians. Given that Shias compromise a plurality, it is not surprising they would register more votes. And so they did. In terms of the absolute vote, the March 8 coalition won 54% of the vote. But March 14 increased its parliamentary majority by one seat simply because of the district weighting. Sunnis and Shias are given the same number of seats even though there are twice as many Shias than Sunnis. So with half the votes, Sunni representation equals the Shias. The election came down to the Christian vote, would it side with March 14 or March 8? The Christian vote was slightly a little bit more for the latter, but enough for the former to give March 14 the majority.

But the Lebanese still preferred March 8th. The majority clearly voted for this coalition, but Lebanese absurd form of confessional politics denies the people their proper representation. This election went off with any trouble after wards. But as the number of Shias grow in the country, they will grow resentful to being arbitrarily denied their proper representation as Christians and Sunnis allocate for themselves more seats than they “deserve” in terms of demographics. Eventually this system will break as the, albeit more flawed, system did.

Of course, in a democracy it should not matter if one or another group is over-represented or underrepresented. Jews are a small minority in America, but they have several seats in Congress. No one cares, because the United States is a secular country where we do not allocate seats on racial grounds. If Sunnis make up 20% but have 40% or more representation in Lebanese parliament this is fine as long as they win one-person, one-vote elections. This is real democracy and the only thing that will save Lebanese politics from descending into the horrors of another civil war.