The continuous search of the Lebanese polity for a proper electoral law able to achieve the simple tasks of any electoral law has failed repetitively. There have been nine different electoral laws for fourteen different parliamentary elections since the independence. Beside the normal political competition and manipulation, one of the main reasons for this failure, this paper argues, is the fact that the law aspired for is expected to achieve two very different forms of representations both enshrined in the Lebanese constitution: representing all Lebanese citizens equally and fairly; and representing the two Lebanese religions equally and the different Lebanese sects / confessions fairly. Each of these forms of representations have their own aims, approaches, tools, and criteria, that may be incompatible and even contradictory at times, especially with a political equilibrium that does not reflect the demographic realities exactly. So far among the two incompatible and even contradictory representations, the Lebanese polity has given priority to the confessional representations, at the expense of proper equal representation of all the Lebanese citizens, which is a very clear violation of a range of basic human rights including equality before the law, participation in government, freedom of association, freedom of belief and others.

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