Lebanon's modern history could be summed up by the inter-Christian division, particularly following independence. The leaders of other confessions concurred with this division, with it being the only pathway to power, as custom and the Taef Agreement handed in the presidency to the Christians. Then, the political life revolved, with its administrative and developmental ramifications, around this division which reflected the controversy over Lebanon's position and its Arab commitments. Until the civil war in the mid 1970s, this division remained disciplined by the Constitution and the laws. Political life was renewed through parliamentary and presidential elections, even though violent acts emerged at some junctures, publicly driven by the presidency as in 1952 and 1958. In the first instance, the president wanted to extend his term, while in the second, he sided with foreign alliances against the region. This division revealed the objection of non-Christian parties in general to the president's policy. This objection turned - thanks to the demographic and economic changes - to a pressuring tool to redraw the internal equation among the sects, as expressed in the Taef Agreement. But ever since this accord was put into effect, the domestic arena has changed, with the Shiite rise represented by the alliance between Amal and Hezbollah and the transformation of the Sunni's rhetoric from loose Arabism to a Lebanon-inspired rhetoric that addresses the same issues the Christians had previously defended. If, during the turmoil in Lebanon, the Sunnis avoided infighting thanks to many factors, the Shiite and Christian communities fell prey to internal strife and intestine fighting. While the Shiites managed – and so did the Sunnis to a large extent – to achieve reconciliation, the Christian divisions persisted and all attempts for internal reconciliation failed. Now, reconciliation attempts within the sects are underway, at least to avoid translating the verbal violence to the street. But the Christian divisions are deepening. A few days before the elections, this division will determine the picture of the coming parliament and maybe that of Lebanon, although the Christians' role and size have dramatically shrunk in Lebanon's public and political life, due to the Taef Agreement or internal self impotency. This contradiction between the increasingly weakening Christians and their role in determining Lebanon's future expresses for sure their crisis. But at the same time, this contradiction reveals the crisis of the sects in developing the new formula that should govern peaceful coexistence between the people of the same country. This crisis is best expressed by the fierce electoral battle in the Christian stronghold districts, while the results of the elections are settled in advance in the districts where other sects are dominant. In this sense, the inter-Christian crisis expresses the ongoing crisis in Lebanon, which is associated with the image of the homeland, the meaning of its institutions, and joint citizenship that secures equal rights and duties, as provided for in the Constitution. The experience of the previous parliamentary term reveals that this crisis did not only paralyze the parliament for half of its term, equally obstructing government action, but also mixed up the institutions and entities. All sectarian leaders sought to monopolize the institutions, namely the executive ones. As such, the institutions became a sort of a mini-parliament which sums up the work of the legislative institution. Noticeably, the agenda of the national dialogue session – that was arranged under exceptional circumstances to look into issues pertaining to national strategies – is now restricted to items that fall within the jurisdiction of the executive power.
