{news} Fw: MERIP Report: Elections Pose Lebanon's Old Questions Anew

[Justine McCabe]

 (Middle East Report online)

 Elections Pose Lebanon's Old Questions Anew

 Sateh Noureddine and Laurie King-Irani

 May 31, 2005

 (Sateh Noureddine is managing editor of the Beirut daily newspaper
 As-Safir.  Laurie King-Irani is former editor of Middle East Report.)

 Watching a wave of peaceful protests compel the Lebanese government to
 resign on February 28, 2005, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli hailed
 the victory of a "Cedar Revolution" in line with, among others, the Orange
 Revolution in Ukraine and "the Purple Revolution in Baghdad." Ereli went on
 to claim that Lebanon's spring of discontent, sparked by the assassination
 of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri on February 14, proved President
 George W. Bush's thesis that it is "the natural state of human beings
 to...want to be free." On the streets of Beirut, though a lively striving
 for freedom was in evidence, the phrase "Cedar Revolution" never gained
 currency. In Lebanon, the months of protest, theatrical and musical
 performances, and all-night, left-right, Muslim-Christian political
 discussions, culminating in the massive demonstration of over one million
 people that overflowed Martyrs' Square in downtown Beirut on March 14, were
 called "the independence uprising" (intifadat al-istiqlal).

 Throughout this popular uprising, politicians and intellectuals in the
 broad-based opposition to the pro-Syrian government managed to navigate the
 dangerous shoals of identification with the Bush administration's agenda,
 on the one hand, while skirting the perilous reef of alienating powerful
 domestic players, on the other. In fact, the opposition, including as it
 did prominent Maronite Christian, Druze and Sunni Muslim figures, conveyed 
a
 convincing impression to the outside world that the country had bridged old
 divides and even overcome the bitter legacies of the 1975-1990 civil war.
 The Maronites, long the most vocal opponents of Syrian influence in
 Lebanon, were joined not only by Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, with whom 
they had
 reconciled in 2001, but also Sunnis furious about the killing of Hariri,
 for  which they blamed Syria. Meanwhile, Hizballah, the primary political 
and
 ideological tribune of the Shiite Muslim community, brought
 counter-demonstrators to the streets to express "thanks" to Syria for its
 role in Lebanon, but also to echo calls for national unity. Local and
 foreign observers optimistically declared that Lebanon, once synonymous
 with destruction, violence and chaos, was now a success story, a country 
moving
 in the right direction against all odds. This impression was strengthened
 by the fact that Syrian troops left Lebanon in an orderly fashion by the 
end
 of April.

 By May 29, the first of four successive Sundays of voting to elect a new
 Lebanese parliament and government, it was plain that the Syrian
 "presence," though increasingly burdensome and unpleasant, was never the 
root problem.
 Rather, Syrian occupation was a symptom of deeper crises in the Lebanese
 political system. The celebrations of Syria's departure in Martyrs' Square
 rarely touched upon these crises, which center on questions of national
 identity, inter-communal conflict, accountability for wartime atrocities 
and
 nation building. The four-week elections will be a telling illustration of
 how the Lebanese will attempt to deal with these unresolved questions
 without an outside party to assist them -- or to bear the blame if they
 fail.

 While the elections are expected to empower the "anti-Syrian" opposition at
 the expense of the "pro-Syrian" loyalists who dominate the current
 parliament, divergent attitudes toward Syria are no longer the salient
dividing line. The key word in Lebanese politics is no longer
 "independence," but once again ta'ifiyya -- the complicated and delicate
 system of power sharing among Lebanon's 18 officially recognized
 ethno-confessional communities. Fifteen years of war followed by 15 years
 of Syrian occupation did not resolve or alter the basic structural and
 procedural problems posed by Lebanon's confessional system of governance.
 Each development in the election campaign, including the low turnout at the
 first round of voting on May 29, served as a troubling reminder of this
fact.

 TWO REBELLIONS

 Not one, but two rebellions surged into Lebanon's streets and dominated
 newspaper columns in the three months since Hariri's assassination and the
 fall of the government. The first was embodied in the significant numbers
 of  Lebanese who marched under the "Syria out!" banner. The other rebellion 
was
 not found in the significant numbers of Lebanese who thanked Syrian forces
 for helping Lebanon to constrain Israeli aggression in Lebanon and for
 guaranteeing relative calm in the country from 1990 until quite recently,
 thus allowing Lebanon to present a more attractive visage to foreign
 investors. Both demonstrations of popular feeling, in fact, showed that the
 whole country had accepted that the time for the Syrians' departure had
 arrived.

 The other rebellion was the recurrence of the same pressing questions after
 each demonstration. Who will rule Lebanon after the Syrian withdrawal? What
 kind of balance of power will be concluded between the different
 confessions? Upon Lebanon's independence from French colonial rule in 1943,
 a National Pact established unwritten rules whereby the president is a
 Maronite Christian, the prime minister is a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of
 Parliament is a Shiite, while allocating parliamentary seats according to a
 sectarian calculus. Today still, 64 seats are reserved for Christians and
 64 for Muslims, including the Druze. The 1989 Ta'if agreement that set the
 stage for the end of the civil war made only minor modifications to these
 allocations, without attacking the underpinnings and inequities of the
 confessional system. The question leading into the elections was simple:
Would Lebanon continue to be governed by the provisions of Ta'if or by a
 new, as yet unconcluded, national pact? In the meantime, how "free and
 fair" can elections be in a country where parliamentary seats are divided 
50-50
 between Christians and Muslims, though this division in no way reflects
 current demographic realities?

 To these questions there have been no clear or widely satisfactory answers.
 For three months, Lebanon's citizenry has expressed itself eloquently and
 peacefully in the streets of Beirut, all the while lacking a truly
 integrated and national political agenda. Hence, the passion and solidarity
 exhibited during the Martyrs' Square demonstrations and the
 counter-demonstrations of Hizballah have not translated into a coherent
 campaign platform for either the forces of opposition to the lame duck
 government or the forces that stayed out of the "independence uprising."
 The demonstrations of March and April addressed one set of problems. The
 fractious and circus-like politicking witnessed before elections have
 provided indices of others.

 FRAGILE RECONCILIATIONS

 For some time after the "independence uprising" forced the government to
 step down, it looked as if elections to replace it might be delayed.
 President Emile Lahoud's attempt to appoint the resigned Omar Karami as
 interim prime minister failed, with Karami unable to assemble a cabinet
 after a month of trying. When Najib Miqati was finally installed as
 caretaker prime minister, he pledged that his government would open the
 polls by the end of May and secured a month-long extension of the current
 parliament's term to allow the contests to take place over four weeks. The
 next controversy concerned the rules that would govern the elections.
 Lebanon's last parliamentary contests, in 2000, were run according to a law
 drafted under Syrian tutelage to gerrymander electoral districts in favor
 of  allies of Damascus. The 2000 electoral law divided Lebanon into 14
 constituencies that do not always conform to the boundaries of the
 country's five provinces. Hizballah and Amal, the other major Shiite party, 
were two
 beneficiaries of the redrawn districts, but so was Druze chieftain
 Jumblatt, who at that time was still in Syria's corner.

 Upon parliamentary approval of his cabinet, Miqati said that "our hands are
 extended to agree on any election law," but, in the end, no amendment to
 the  2000 law was debated by the legislature. Christian opposition
 parliamentarians, backed by Maronite patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir as well as
 others, mounted a vociferous campaign to subdivide the provinces into 24
 districts (qada'), so as to give greater representation to the country's
 smaller communities. Other factions in the opposition had their own
 criticisms of the 2000 law, but they were not willing to postpone the date
 of elections to allow time for complex redistricting negotiations that
 might  wind up reducing their political power. Cracks in the "anti-Syrian"
 opposition began to appear, with Jumblatt and others siding with the
 "pro-Syrian" parliamentary speaker, Nabih Berri of Amal, in tacit support
 for the 2000 law. Washington and Paris, meanwhile, were open about their
 preference that elections be held on time, without delay, and based on
 whatever electoral law was readily available. On May 7, shortly after
 writing a letter to Parliament expressing worry that the 2000 law could be
 divisive, Lahoud decreed that it would suffice after all.

 In urging the Lebanese to hold elections as quickly as possible, against
 the wishes of some of the protagonists in the independence uprising, 
Washington
 and Paris were clearly moving to avoid a political vacuum in Lebanon, which
 could have dangerous regional consequences. The United States and France
 were also reluctant to provoke the Shia, especially Hizballah, which
 controls the border with Israel in the south. Nor did anyone want to upset
 other "pro-Syrian" factions in Lebanon, who will occupy between 35 and 40
 of the 128 seats in the next parliament.

 ELECTORAL EQUATIONS

 The initial round of voting in Beirut on May 29 will not set the pattern
 for other parts of the country. Turnout was a surprisingly low 28 percent, 
in
 part because several candidates were running unopposed. Most voters who
 went to the polling stations seemed only to be expressing an emotional 
reaction
 to the assassination of Hariri. The lists of Hariri's son Saad, who
 inherited the leadership of his father's Mustaqbal Party, wound up sweeping
 all 19 seats in the three Beirut districts. In one curious electoral
 alliance, the younger Hariri enlisted Solange Gemayel, widow of the
 assassinated Bashir Gemayel of the Lebanese Forces, to run for office in
 the Ashrafiyya district of East Beirut. Gemayel, like eight other 
candidates on
 Hariri's list, ran unopposed. But Hariri was unable to lure all the
 Christian opposition leaders, who decided instead to focus on the battles
 in their strongholds, or simply to boycott the vote in the capital as an
 objection to the electoral law. The debacle of the formerly "pro-Syrian"
 forces in Beirut will surely have a psychological impact on their standing
 in the next parliament, but the fortunes of other major allies of Syria
 before the withdrawal, such as Hizballah, Amal and traditional families in
 the north, mainly the Franjiyyas and the Karamis, will be better.

 Partly as a result of keeping the 2000 electoral law, the "Resistance,
 Liberation and Development" lists fronted by Hizballah and Amal will
 dominate the electoral game in the south and in the Bekaa Valley. Here,
 too, the alliances have been odd. The lists presently include a member of 
the
 Lebanese Baath Party and the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party -- both of
 which would have been classified as very "pro-Syrian" before the
 withdrawal -- but also the late Hariri's sister Bahiyya, who is running for
 the slot reserved for a Sunni in the Sidon-Zahrani district. Hizballah and
 its former rival Amal were also more nimble than others in organizing
 electoral lists to compete in areas where there will be real competition,
 including regions once considered Christian strongholds. When all is said
 and done, Hizballah may emerge just as strong in the new parliament as it
 was in the old.

 The fact that the outcome of so many contests was predetermined has
 directed the attention of many Lebanese to deeper issues than the partisan
 affiliation of candidates. In the weeks leading up to May 29, several
 politicians, mainly Muslims, quietly broached the very sensitive issue of
 inter-communal power sharing. Now more than two thirds of the population,
 by some estimates (there is no official count), many Muslims are asking for 
a
 new division of seats in parliament with the Christians, or at the very
 least a new commitment to the Ta'if agreement that helped end 15 years of
 internecine fighting. A key request is for transfer of additional powers
 from the hands of the Maronite president to the council of ministers led by
 the Sunni prime minister. The Ta'if accord had already transferred several
 powers out of the president's purview. On the Christian side, the patriarch
 Sfeir has set forth a clear demand that Christian representatives in
 Parliament should be elected exclusively by Christian voters. As it stands,
 the Muslim voters of a given district vote to fill the Maronite, Greek
 Catholic and other Christian slots that may exist in their district as well
 as the Muslim ones. The same is true of Christians voting for Muslims.

 Meanwhile, one cannot ignore the ideas sparked by the voluble Gen. Michel
 Aoun, who led an interim military government from 1988 and launched a
 disastrous and bloody "war of liberation" against Syrian forces in 1989.
 The general returned from his Parisian exile in mid-May and immediately 
entered
 the electoral fray, sallying forth among his old rivals spouting a populist
 rhetoric that runs counter to the economic polarization the country has
 experienced over the last two decades, and raising questions about
 deconfessionalizing the political system. Aoun's agonistic personality and
 broad-brush approach to political and social realities has earned him a
 small but passionate following. It is notable that he has stated that he
 does not want to be considered a member of a Christian list, or to be
 advancing Christian lists. During the Beirut balloting, the general's
 partisans distributed leaflets calling on Lebanese not to participate in
 the "appointment" of parliamentarians at the polls, though, in keeping with 
the
 circus-like atmosphere of the election season, the general's Free Patriotic
 Movement may still field candidates in districts where they think their
 chances are better. Aoun's impact on the elections is likely to be minimal,
 but his rhetoric may reverberate in Lebanon's political scene, especially
 since many of his supporters are young people.

 OLD QUESTIONS

 Are Lebanon's first elections of the post-Syrian era fated to be simply an
 expression of revenge against Damascus? Everyone knows that voting against
 Syria does not necessarily mean voting for the Lebanese national unity felt
 by many during the March-April demonstrations, much less a new, overarching
 national identity. Meanwhile, the presence on the ballot of many candidates
 who have, in effect, already won their seats, has sown cynicism and
 probably helped to depress voter turnout so far.

 The elections will probably result in the removal from Parliament of
 several Sunni, Christian and Druze politicians who were close to Damascus. 
Many
 expect that a further major symbolic blow to Syria will come in the fall,
 when the new parliament will have the chance to remove Lahoud as president.
 Other than that, the elections will not bring much change to the underlying
 political structures of the country. There are few signs that the
 mobilization among the different confessions precipitated by the electoral
 law fight and other disputes will be over soon. The elections already
 represent a clear divergence from the shows of unity in the streets of
 Beirut during the three months after the assassination of Hariri. The
 Sunnis, Druzes and Christians who were marching and chanting together
 against Syria are already facing, once again, the very old Lebanese problem
 of what kind of national pact should be put on the table. The Shia will 
soon
 be asking old questions about their share, but in the context of a new
 regional environment in which Shiite politics are quite different than they
 were three decades ago.

 Not least, Lebanon's new parliament will be faced as well with deciding the
 future of Hizballah as a political, social and military force in the
 southern suburbs and in the south of the country, where many still fear
 Israeli aggression as much as they fear an unfair deal that will cut the
 Shia out of key political and economic sectors. An institutional order unto
 itself, Hizballah remains a major political force to reckon with after the
 Syrian withdrawal, even if that withdrawal has exposed Hizballah's militia
 to renewed demands that it disarm in accordance with UN Security Council
 Resolution 1559. US, French and other international pressures are only some
 of the reasons why the issue of Hizballah's disarmament will be
 contentious.

 While it is indisputable that the "independence uprising" and the Syrian
 departure have allowed Lebanese to acknowledge that the civil war is
 finally over, few Lebanese would contend that the impact of the long war 
has truly
 dissipated. The Lebanese people are still facing the challenge of
 establishing a state that transcends confessionalism. Azmi Bishara, a
 prominent Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset, captured the dynamic
 upon leaving Beirut after paying his condolences to the Hariri family and
 meeting with a wide range of Lebanese political figures. Bishara was
 dismayed to discover that Lebanon, despite mounting a dramatic and
 media-savvy movement for sovereignty, remains a country whose political
 system lacks formal definition, whose cosmopolitan politicians are rooted
 in a feudal era despite speaking a post-modern language, and whose greatest
 problems emanate not from external enemies but rather from chronic internal
 structural imbalances. Lebanese do indeed "want to be free," but freedom
 from Syrian occupation has prompted a poignant acknowledgement of the
continued constraints on Lebanon's quest to define itself.
 -----
For background on the independence uprising, see Nicholas Blanford,
"Lebanon Catches Its Breath," Middle East Report Online, March 23, 2005.
 http://www.merip.org/mero/mero032305.html

 See also Laurie King-Irani, "Commemorating Lebanon's Civil War Amid
 Continued Crisis," Middle East Report Online, April 14, 2005.
 http://www.merip.org/mero/mero041405.html


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