I’ve neglected to pay much attention to the upcoming elections in Lebanon for the last few weeks, but since they start tomorrow, I figured I should do some reading.
The Monitor has a helpful Q&A, and The Daily Star has some apparently contradictory articles about whether or not it’ll be a landslide.
The Monitor posted a very nice Q & A by Nick Blanford (who I might add formerly worked with us at The Daily Star and still writes the occasional freelance piece).
Yes, it seems that the two articles in the Star are contradictory. But this is due to the strange way that the elections are unfolding here in Lebanon.
After former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination, the vast majority of the country’s Christians and Sunnis were united in what was then called “the opposition.†This alliance helped bring down the government of Prime Minister Omar Karami and was instrumental in pushing for Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon.
But after the Syrians left and the Lebanese were left to their own devices, sectarian cracks started to show in “the opposition.†Shortly after the Syrian withdrawal, the Lebanese Parliament decided to use the same electoral law that was used in the 2000 election, even though this electoral law is viewed by many Christians as unfair, since it was designed by the former Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon and it employs some really freakish gerrymandering to assure victory to pro-Syrian Muslim parties (for example, when you look at the map of voting districts, some of the districts aren’t even connected; it groups small pockets of Christians with large Muslim territories, for example).
The Maronite Bishops issued a statement condemning this electoral law as “unfair†and said it “threatened Christian-Muslim co-existence†and urged all parties not to participate in the election. This threw the country into turmoil and there was serious doubt as to whether the election would go ahead on time. U.S. ambassador in Lebanon Jeffery Feltman intervened to try to save the polls. He held talks with Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir (the head Maronite) and Saad Hariri (the son of the slain former premier and leading political figure in the Sunni community) to try to ease the Christian patriarch’s fears that the results of elections would be unfair.
This is where things got ugly and complicated. Within the Christian community there are two viable political parties: the Lebanese Forces (LF) and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM). The two parties are very different but they were united in the Christian-Sunni “opposition†movement.
The LF is a strictly Christian party, formerly a Christian militia in the civil war, and it is headed by Samir Geagea, who is currently in prison for crimes he committed during the war. The LF likes to carry big white flags with huge red crosses on them. Scary.
The FPM is a secular party that is mostly backed by Christians but has some support among Sunnis and Shiites. It is headed by former Army General Michel Aoun, who recently returned from exile in Paris. The FPM calls for the end of Lebanon’s religious sectarianism and is trying to build support for its political programs among all religious communities. The FPM likes to carry big orange flags with an omega symbol on them. Not as scary.
During negotiations, the objective was to get elections to go ahead on time. This meant that Lebanese Muslims had to appease Sfeir and the Maronite Bishops, who unsurprisingly favor the LF over the FPM. Hariri ended up forming electoral alliance lists that include LF candidates in order to go ahead with the polls as scheduled. The FPM, for a number of reasons, was unable to form any electoral alliances with either Hariri or Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, so they are left to fight in the polls on their own, an arrangement that coupled with the 2000 electoral law surely spells their defeat.
This is why we say that the opposition has split. Although the core of the opposition (Hariri, Jumblatt and the LF) will do very well in the polls under their united lists, the FPM has been forced to break off from this group and is likely to lose seats. Lebanese law requires that Parliament is split 50-50 Muslim-Christian and the majority of the Christian seats will likely go to LF members, even though the LF has far less than 50 percent of Lebanese popular support. They will be grossly over-represented in Parliament and the FPM will be under-represented.
The system of voting for electoral lists as opposed to individual candidates makes the elections a sham. None of the parties has been talking about political programs. Candidates are not judged on the basis of their economic program or national agenda, but rather, they are chosen because they have managed to ally with one of the country’s political strongmen.
So there it is. Mix religion with politics and you get the political mess that is Lebanon. When Bush praises Lebanon’s “free and democratic†elections, don’t be fooled.
That makes it a lot more clear. Thank you! It also sounds like although there was little contest in Beirut, there are other regions where the elections might be closer?
It also seems like the list system is stifling, but not absolutely so, since Blanford points out that
voters can mix and match — or does it not really matter since each sect is guaranteed a set number of seats?
For anyone else still following the comments, here are three BBC articles I found interesting/clarifying:
Q&A: Lebanon Votes
Analysis: Religious voting in Lebanon
Who’s who in Lebanon’s election