Beirut: After it was widely criticised in 2013, the Lebanese joint parliamentary committees convened on Tuesday to study various electoral drafts and settled on the so-called “Orthodox Gathering Electoral Law” for serious consideration.

Under the controversial proposal, an expansion of parliamentary seats would be recorded — from 128 to 134 — along with a complex pattern that would allow each of Lebanon’s 18 officially recognised religious communities to elect their own deputies.

The proportional representation system will consider the country as a single district. Consequently, the draft stipulates that each sect will vote for its own representatives, with registered Shiite voters only be able to vote for Shiite candidates, Sunnis for Sunnis, Maronites for Maronites, and so on.

In other words, the idea behind the law is to abandon the current list system (dating back to 1960) that requires political parties to line up a variety of candidates drawn from various sects.

Under this proposal, vehemently derided by critics, the Maronite vote would allegedly become 1.5 times more important than the weight of the Sunni vote, and the Greek Orthodox voters would carry more than two times the weight of Shiite votes because of dramatically altered demographic changes.

Still, the so-called Orthodox Plan faced severe criticisms from the Future Movement and Sa’ad Hariri and, more vociferously by the Progressive Socialist Party and its leader, Walid Junblatt.

Former President Michel Sulaiman tweeted, “The Orthodox law violates the constitution in every way,” and while three other draft laws were also considered during Tuesday’s meeting — the so-called hybrid, proportional, and majority laws — no decisions were reached to debate them in parliament. How could any plan be adopted when so many parliamentarians, who would be asked to approve, rejected it?

For his part, Speaker Nabih Berri revealed that the joint committees will hold another meeting next Monday to address 13 additional draft laws ahead of holding a legislative session to approve one of them, although only four seemed to carry any traction, even if the favourite Orthodox Law is hugely contentious.

Ironically, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) perceived the proposed law as the best of the lot, and added a new argument by seeking to grant expatriate Lebanese citizens the right of representation.

Deputy Ebrahim Kanaan affirmed that the FPM was not willing to “strike a deal over [the Orthodox Law], but it is linked to rights stipulated in the constitution and National Pact.” He described the joint parliamentary committees’ meeting as “a step in the right direction,” noting that the election of a president and adoption of a just electoral law will pave the way for political reforms in Lebanon.

Kanaan reminded observers that the FPM previously endorsed this proposal but insisted that “we should also not overlook the rights of expatriates in voting,” because “expatriates should be represented in parliament similar to parliaments the world over.” Given its immense complications, it is unbelievable that Lebanese parliamentarians contemplated such a scheme, which necessitates elaborate changes to citizenship regulations.

Since 2009, the last year when parliamentary elections were held in Lebanon, deputies extended their own terms in office twice, once in 2013 and a second time in 2014. The current term presumably ends in 2017 and a further breakdown to adopt a new law will most likely necessitate a third extension.