Give the Lebanese Voters a Say in Choice of New Electoral System

We disagreed on the specific modalities of the reform needed in Lebanon - for example, he supports the immediate instatement of voting rights to Lebanese passport holders around the world, while I believe such a change should only be made later, after other more important reforms. Yet we both strongly felt that sweeping change is needed.

Although the new electoral commission comprises members with solid analytical capacity, what is needed from the commission is far more fundamental than recommendations for a specific electoral structure.

In 1994, I undertook a study of the South African elections and traveled to Cape Town to observe the electoral process. What I learned from the South Africans with whom I spoke - rich and poor, educated and illiterate, black, white and Asian - was that the most fundamental part of the process was the extensive, open, lengthy dialogue that preceded the 1994 multi-party, nonracial elections. Indeed as South Africa's Minister of Justice Dullah Omar said to my group, "Democracy is all about people participating in the decisions that affect their lives." And indeed, participating in setting the rules of democratic elections may matter most of all.

During much of the four years between F.W. de Klerk's freeing of Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990 to the elections in 1994 a Convention for a Democratic South Africa was hosted by the major parties themselves - the A.N.C., the National Party and others - in which any citizen could be part of the dialogue and present their views on how the new South African Constitution and the electoral system should be structured. What emerged was a largely excellent system that balances efficient centralized government decision-making ability with tremendous incentives for protecting South Africa's minorities that make up the country's multi-ethnic mosaic. The president comes from the largest party and the vice presidents and Cabinet members are allotted proportionally from other parties, thus ensuring inter-party and inter-group dialogue, respect and safety.

There are many options for Lebanon to follow. Firstly, a proportional representation system, used in many countries including South Africa, under which a party must have 5 percent of the vote to obtain a presence in Parliament. This prevents nonparty individualists from running. Secondly, the winner-takes-all, single member district system used in America and Britain, whereby each member of parliament is elected individually. Thirdly, the "preferential" or "single transferable" voting system used in a number of countries, such as Australia. Here, each voter opts for first, second and sometimes third choice parties. This encourages parties to have broader appeal and helps reduce sectarianism. And there are others, of course.

While I may think the South African system wonderful for Lebanon, my views on this specific model are far less important than my belief in a national dialogue in which each and every citizen should have the right to substantively participate. Taking part in the process that determines the rules of the game under which elections are held is just as important in the context of "participating in the decisions that affect their lives" as actually voting.

A dialogue on the Lebanese national electoral system should last a year - or more - and provide the opportunity for Lebanon's many sects and strains of political thought to come together to debate the rules of their own game. Such a process should yield a system and a set of rules to which the vast majority agree. It would be my bet that such a system would end up being much more truly democratic than our current system of lists and slates with which your average Lebanese voter is so disenchanted that voter turnout rates even in this tumultuous year have been in the teens in some districts.

Rules matter. We need look no further than Florida for the proof of that. Having served as Al Gore's national director for Ethnic American Outreach in 2000, I have now endured five years of Lebanese, Egyptian and other comments like "how can you complain about our elections; look at what happened to Gore in Florida." Had the rules been different, Gore might have become president.

Despite everything the U.S. genuinely has to offer in this field and my own strong personal links in Washington and Beirut, I suggest to my fellow Lebanese that they look for models from the developing world. And I suggest to America that it desist from sending its own electoral scholars and instead sponsor dialogue between the Lebanese and constitutional and electoral practitioners from successful newly emerged democracies like South Africa.

The Lebanese elections commission is due to report back on their recommendations later this year. My hope is that they will say we need to create a Lebanese National Electoral Dialogue for Democracy, instead of proposing a new system devised by experts, a process that has already led to civil strife since Lebanon's very foundation. And in the context of this national dialogue, why not harness Internet technology to do what Chibli Mallat, proposes which is make the process of debate truly open to the participation of the Lebanese Diaspora. In the 1940s Lebanon led the Arab World in instituting a structure for democracy. Now it is time for it to lead the Arab World again - this time in the process of determining the rules of the electoral game.