'Cedar' revolutionaries want more reform for Lebanon

As opposition leaders like Walid Jumblatt began negotiating with pro-Syrian politicians, some revolutionaries became disgusted.

Jomaa and other disillusioned activists formed a group called Hayyabina, orLet's Go, which calls for the abolition of Lebanon's confessional system. Based on religious affiliation, Lebanese law sets up a balance of religious sects in parliament. Although Muslims are more than half the population, the 128-member parliament must be split evenly between Muslims and Christians. Seats are set aside for specific religious sects, and politicians can only run for seats that correspond to their religion.

In theory, this confessional system keeps the country's Muslim majority from dominating smaller religious groups. But in practice, it is more complicated: The current electoral law, for example, forces many Christians to vote in Muslim areas.

Hayyabina's platform is simple: Instead of voting according to religion, the Lebanese should be allowed to vote according to traditional political platforms. "We want to find our rights as citizens, not as members of religious groups," says Lokman Slim, one of the group's founders. "We cannot find our rights through membership in confessional groups - we want them to be guaranteed in the Constitution."

Hayyabina is not the only group seeking to change Lebanon's political landscape. After the revolution, more than 13,000 Lebanese citizens signed a petition to add a clause to Lebanon's electoral law, allowing Lebanese expatriates to vote overseas. Nobody knows exactly how many Lebanese live abroad, but some estimates range as high as three times the country's internal population of 4 million.

In Lebanon, expatriate voting has always been politically charged, with critics claiming that it would tip the country's sectarian balance one way or another. But others say that as Lebanese citizens, they have a right to vote, regardless of who they might vote for. "The simple argument that is the basis of this campaign is that it is simply a constitutional right to vote if you are Lebanese, and the holder of a Lebanese passport," says Chibli Mallat, a law professor at Beirut's St. Joseph University. "So you cannot be deprived of this right."

Mr. Mallat and several others presented their petition to the Lebanese government a month before Sunday's poll, pointing out several ways in which voting could be conducted at Lebanese embassies abroad. But the government, absorbed in minute negotiations over the electoral law, did nothing. "The present government doesn't have the imagination or the guts to get it through," says Mallat. "I think we are still in the ancient world."

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