Minorities (Lebanon)

Districts where 4–5% of the registered voters belong to Minorities.

In Lebanese politics, Minorities (Arabic: أقليات ’Aqaliyāt) is a term that includes six different Christian sects; Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholics, Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholics, Latin Catholics and Coptic Orthodox.[1][2] 1 of the 128 seats in the national parliament is allocated to Minorities (all seats in the Lebanese parliament are allocated to different confessional groups).[1] The Minorities' seat is elected from Beirut III electoral district, an electoral district with a large Sunni Muslim majority (65.25% of the registered voters).[1][3]

According to data released by the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities in 2011 (not an official census as such), there were 42,715 registered Minorities voters (1.28% of all registered voters in the country). Electoral districts with significant Minorities populations were Beirut I 10,063 voters (11.0% of the registered voters in the electoral district, overwhelmingly Syriac Catholics[4]), Beirut III 8,181 voters (3.18%), Metn 7,802 voters (4.56%), Zahle 7,225 voters (4.51%) and Beirut II 3,529 voters (3.44%).[3] In the capital Beirut (all three districts combined) Minorities represented 4.83% of the registered voters.[3]

  1. ^ a b c Daily Star. Minority sects demand greater representation in Parliament
  2. ^ Assyrian International News Agency. Syriac Catholic Patriarch Demands Seat in Lebanese Parliament
  3. ^ a b c IFES. Electoral Districts in Lebanon Archived 2015-04-07 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ According to the newspaper Balad there were 9,955 Syriac Catholic registered voters in Beirut I in 2009 compared to 177 registered voters belonging to the five other Minorities sects. Quoted in Messerlian, Zaven. Armenian Participation in the Lebanese Legislative Elections 1934–2009. Beirut: Haigazian University Press, 2014. p. 486