National Pact
Lebanese confessionalist agreement
The National Pact (Arabic: الميثاق الوطني, romanized: al Mithaq al Watani) is an unwritten agreement that laid the foundation of Lebanon as a multiconfessional state following negotiations between the Shia, Sunni, Maronite, and Druze leaderships. Enacted in the summer of 1943, the National Pact was formed by President Bechara El Khoury and Prime Minister Riad Al Solh. Mainly centered around the interests of political elites, the Maronite elite served as a voice for the Christian population of Lebanon, while the Sunni elite represented the voice of the Muslim population. The pact also established Lebanon's independence from France.
Key points of the agreement stipulate that:
Lebanese Christians do not seek Western intervention, and accept that Lebanon had Arab features.
Lebanese Muslims abandon their aspirations to unite with Syria and the Arab World.
The president of the Republic and the commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces must be Maronite Catholic.
The prime minister of the Republic must be a Sunni Muslim.
The speaker of the Parliament must be a Shia Muslim.
The deputy speaker of the Parliament and the deputy prime minister must be Greek Orthodox Christian.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “National Pact” is lebanese confessionalist agreement. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through National, Pact and Lebanese, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q748819. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1943.
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This entry incorporates text from “National Pact” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.