Lebanon

Technical Assistance project for Electoral Reform

 The government that was formed after the election, led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, included in its Policy Platform the need for electoral reform, including on priority basis, reform of the electoral law. On 8 August, the Council of Ministers created a National Commission for Electoral Law Reform, giving substance to the Policy Platform’s recommendation. The Commission was mandated to present a draft electoral law by 8 January 2006.

The Council of Ministers authorized the Commission to seek, as needed, international assistance in carrying out its work. Accordingly, it requested the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for technical electoral support. UNDP/Lebanon formulated with the Commission a project that would create a technical secretariat; the secretariat would respond to the Commission alone and would have the capacity to carry out research and other tasks. In addition, through the United Nations’ global electoral network, the secretariat would arrange for visits by experts in certain electoral areas (identified by the Commission) to provide briefings to the Commission. The project document outlining the creation of the Secretariat was signed on 1 October2005.

It is important to underline that the United Nations role is to act as an impartial vehicle through which knowledge and experience can be channeled to the Commission in accordance with its priorities. The secretariat will not have any opinion of its own on the issues considered by the Commission.

The first phase of the project will be structured to synchronize with the Commission’s timetable and sequenced subsequently around the follow up actions and measures, as required, in the electoral reform processes, within the framework of UNDP’s ongoing governance projects in the Prime Minister’s Office according to a MOU with the Prime Minister’s Office signed on 28 November 2005.