During my conversation with Nawef Masawi, then Hezbollah’s Foreign Minister, he described how democracy in Lebanon functioned. He said that Lebanon’s democracy is “not a democracy of figures (individuals) it is a democracy of communities.” (The conversation is here)
In the Taif Agreement of 1989 which ended Lebanon’s long and brutal civil war, power was distributed by a sectarian distribution of offices and seats in Parliament based on a 1932 census. The 128 Parliament seats are allocated 64 to Christians and 64 to Muslims. The President must be a Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of Parliament a Shia Muslim. This distribution reasonably reflected the 1932 demographics, but, as a result of ongoing emigration of Christians, the Christian representation in government far exceeds their proportion of the population. However, nobody wants to reopen the old sores of the civil war and revisit the agreement.
As Masawi points out, the system results in a government based on decision by consensus. When, in 2008, under pressure by the Bush administration, Prime Minister Siniora tried to override the consensus and attempted to curb the power of Hezbollah, major political unrest ensued. The crisis was averted when the Emir of Qatar brokered the Doha Agreement which awarded Hezbollah a ”blocking third” in the cabinet. This effectively gives them veto power on major decisions.
The result of this system is a very weak government in Lebanon which has difficulty getting anything done. However, the system has remained in place for 20 years with little sectarian conflict. No confessional group is incentivized to try to gain complete control as there is no way to increase their number of seats in Parliament. They are limited by the sectarian allocation.
A similar system might work well in Iraq. Allocation of seats and cabinet positions resulting in a distribution of power among Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs and Kurds, based on population with major decisions, such as allocation of oil revenues, requiring a super majority, would result in a weak central government forced to govern by consensus. Such a system would probably be acceptable to all of the regional and extra regional players who are trying to influence the outcome.
Since the March 2010 elections, Iraq has experienced political gridlock as no group has been able to establish a coalition to form a government. Outside parties have been exerting pressure to protect their interests and the interests of their client groups. The US has tried to insure that their western oriented Sunni and Kurdish allies come to power and that major US oil and construction interests have the upper hand in future contracts. Iran wants a weak Shia dominated government which will not repeat the Saddam Hussein military adventures and will not allow the US to have a threatening military presence right on their border. Saudi Arabia wants to protect the interests of their Sunni Muslim brothers. Syria and Turkey also have strong national interests in the Iraqi outcome.
Under a consensus system, nobody would get everything that they want, but they might get enough to stop interfering and allow the system to function.
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