Communist Party calls for single electoral districtTurn state from 'handful of sectarian minorities into a true country'
On the occasion of the New Year, the Communist Party called for creating a single electoral district with proportional representation, which the party said would help reduce sectarianism. In a news conference on Tuesday, the party called its program of political reform "crucial for the salvation of Lebanon."
The party expressed its support for the Taif Accord - the 1989 agreement that ended the Lebanese Civil War and created a Cabinet balanced between Muslims and Christians. The Accord calls for the gradual withdrawal of Syrian troops and establishes a Lebanon-Syria security agreement. "We believe that it is high time that both Lebanese and Syrian governments proceed to a dialogue that should be followed up by future governments and parliaments in order to reach a new equation of a relation that is worth defending and spread in Arab countries," the party said.
The party highlighted the importance of the Taif Accord in political reforms by transforming the state "from a handful of sectarian minorities into a true country in which an individual's loyalty is foremost to the state."
But creating a single electoral district, the party said, would help decrease the sectarian competition in allotting parliamentary seats.
"The sectarian distribution of spoils contradicts the accord's reformative articles and is the main cause of the exacerbation of the political, economic and social crises."
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.