Introducing the Robert Fadel Maneuver

Robert Fadel (Image source: The Daily Star/ Mohamad Azakir)

Wait, what? An MP resigned?

Yesterday, Tripoli’s Greek Orthodox MP, Robert Fadel, dropped a political bomb and announced that he was resigning from parliament, because the new Tripoli municipal council had no Christian representatives: “More than one essential component was absent or marginalized from the new municipal council,” Fadel said in an email statement.

True, 126 MPs should resign their seats as well since they weren’t elected and their presence in parliament is unconstitutional according to the constitutional council itself, but it should be noted that MP Fadel’s resignation is by far the perfect example of a Lebanese politician’s maneuver.

The context

With draft electoral laws being discussed in joint commissions once again – including talks of major changes, such as switching 60 or even 64 seats to proportional representation , bigger electoral districts might replace caza ones, and the Greek Orthodox seat might find his way to a larger PR district as a way to give the FPM-LF alliance a political win they can call huge while it’s actually not that relevant to the nationwide politics (although changing the law is extremely likely after the municipal elections almost overthrew every major politician in his “fiefdom” making proportional representation a risky prospect for everyone).

So in other words, there might not be a Greek Orthodox parliamentary seat in Tripoli in 2017 (It would be transferred to a greater North constituency with PR representation), and Fadel can no longer count on an alliance with the city’s politicians – No matter who they are (Mikati, Safadi, Karami, Hariri or Rifi). He’ll either have to run in a district that includes Zgharta, where he might face Frangieh, the strongest presidential candidate right now (or Frangieh Jr, the son of the next president in case that candidate makes it to Baabda) – good luck with that, or he’ll have to run in a district that includes Batroun. There, he’ll have to face Boutros Harb (or a successor), Gebran Bassil – the president of the FPM, and Antoine Zahra of the LF. Depending on the redistricting, he might run for a seat in the entire North governorate. And that means going against all of the above politicians.

Fadel had to face the fact that he was going to run against a presidential candidate or the son of a presidential candidate, or the son-in-law of a presidential candidate and the president of the biggest Christian party who also happens to be supported by the second strongest Christian party and a potentially very powerful independent candidate and local politician. To make things even worse, two of those politicians (Harb, Bassil) are currently in the cabinet.

So what did he do? He resigned, because there were no Christian members of the municipality in the city – in order to try and “win the hearts” of the Christian electorate of Batroun, Zgharta, and Koura, a year before general elections, while also making sure that it was almost impossible for anyone else to take his seat from now till June 2017. But the maneuver isn’t that simple.

The timing

Theoretically, and according to article 41 of the Constitution, “Should a seat in the Chamber become vacant, the election of a successor shall begin within two months. The mandate of the new member shall not exceed that of the old member whose place he is taking; however, should the seat in the Chamber become vacant during the last six months of its mandate, no successor may be elected.”
That means we should have elections by August – similar to the Jezzine by-elections earlier this month, but Fadel resigned one day after parliamentary elections could have been held to replace him, and we live in Lebanon, so if the interior ministry was going to organize parliamentary by-elections in Tripoli, it was going to be last week, when the city had its municipal ones. If the Jezzine by-elections took two years to happen (after the death of MP Helou in 2014) Tripoli by-elections are unlikely to happen before May 2017, and no one of the mainstream establishment parties is going to risk losing a Tripoli seat a day after Rifi won the city. It’s a risky prospect, and gives the opportunity to Rifi, Tripoli’s rising politician, to get a Christian politician by his side. That’s literally the worst thing that could ever happen to any of the parties in power, since it would mean that Rifi can slowly expand his influence in the other Sunni regions – The Sunni leaders of the establishment, when “big enough”, have always been known of allying themselves with minor Christian figures in their regions – while also threatening the Christian parties’ dominance in the North.

So yeah, I’ll repeat what I said earlier: No one of the mainstream establishment parties is going to risk losing a Tripoli seat a day after Rifi won the city. Fadel’s seat will remain vacant till 2017, so no one could actually fill the vacancy, and if the Tripoli seat remains in the city, Fadel will run with his Sunni allies just like the good old days of 2009 (In the end – and in a way – he resigned because they lost the municipal elections). If it’s going outside the city, where the Christian electorate is expected to have a higher percentage (Christians are around 40% of the Northeners), he has the best sectarian card ever to face the FPM, the LF, Harb (and if Koura is included, other independents like Makari) : He can say he’s the only MP who resigned for “a Christian cause”.

Mikati tried to do the same maneuver in the Sunni camp when he resigned back in 2013, right before parliamentary elections, when Rifi was being isolated (If you guys remember), so it’s actually an old-school maneuver many Lebanese politicians like to use in times of trouble.

ALSO, if you notice, Fadel resigned exactly 3 years after the first parliamentary extension. Now that is what you call a smooth maneuver.

La morale: Campaigning for the parliamentary elections has just begun. Brace yourselves. It’s going to be an exciting year of political maneuvers.

738 days since the 25th of May (presidential vacancy). 1097 days since the 31st of May (parliamentary extension) .

2010 Municipal Elections Reforms and WikiLeaks

A man casts his vote during the municipal by-elections in the southern village of Bisarieh, Sunday, May 6, 2012. (The Daily Star/Mohammed Zaatari)

This is the 15th post in a series of monthly posts covering (forgotten/ignored) WikiLeaks cables about Lebanon.

Lebanon is a country best known for its presidential vacancy, for its trash crisis, for its political deadlock, for the lack of infrastructure and government services – basically for the lack of everything. That includes fair electoral laws. Since it’s municipal elections season this month, and since I couldn’t find anything worth sharing about the dynamics of the previous municipal elections that happened in 1998, 2004, and 2010 on WikiLeaks (If you find anything interesting, nudge me), I thought it would be interesting to focus on the municipal elections draft law that was proposed in February 2010 by the former minister of interior Ziad Baroud: Among the reforms, you’ll find pre-printed ballots, a 30% quota for women, direct election of council presidents and their deputies, and proportional representation in larger districts. A draft law eventually made it into the drawers of the Lebanese parliament and – as expected – sadly never made it out. This month’s WikiLeaks cable is basically the American ambassador’s point of view on the reforms and why she tought they wouldn’t pass before the May 2010 elections (Fact: We’re in May in 2016, and the reforms still never made it to the parliament’s floor – because Lebanese politicians). To sum up the WikiLeaks cable in two sentences, “The draft bill as a whole is not in the interest of any of the traditional political players, since it weakens the ability of powerbrokers to manipulate the electoral system. Although the motivation varies from party to party and confession to confession, all sides have an interest in minimizing the impact of the proposed reforms.”

Today, those reforms are more important than ever: If the elections were based on proportional representation, the anti-establishment lists would have gotten at least 9 seats out of 24 in Beirut. Women are still struggling in municipal elections, and the number of violations on the first day of elections was too damn high: Just check LADE’s report, and you’ll get an idea.

Here’s the full cable:

CABINET APPROVES MUNICIPAL ELECTORAL REFORMS, BUT PARLIAMENT IS NEXT HURDLE
Date: 2010 February 19, 15:59 (Friday)	Canonical ID: 10BEIRUT164_a

Classified By: Ambassador Michele J. Sison for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

1. (C) Summary: Despite pressure from multiple sides to delay, the Lebanese municipal elections are still scheduled for June 2009. In January Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud presented a draft bill to cabinet containing a menu of electoral reforms, including measures to create standardized pre-printed ballots, set aside a quota for female candidates, directly elect council presidents and deputies, and introduce proportional voting. Although many politicians have opposed one or more of the reforms, seeing them as undermining existing power structures, the cabinet has approved a surprisingly high proportion of them. Baroud will now redact the bill and it will move to parliament, where many believe differences of opinion and opposition to reform could cause it to stall. End Summary.

BAROUD’S DRAFT LAW FRAMES DEBATE

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2. (U) On January 19, Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud introduced a draft law for municipal elections to the cabinet. Simultaneously, the cabinet voted to extend the term of the sitting councils by a month, thus extending the deadline for elections to the end of June. The cabinet also approved Baroud’s proposal to reduce council terms from six to five years. Although most political observers speculated that the majority of parties would seek to postpone the elections on a technical basis, Baroud has consistently maintained publicly that his ministry was ready logistically to carry out the municipal election in the spring with or without the reforms.

3. (U) Baroud’s draft electoral law called for several major reforms: pre-printed ballots, a 30% quota for female candidates, direct election of council presidents and their deputies, and proportional representation in larger districts. Baroud, who is widely respected for his expertise in electoral processes, anticipated many of the cabinet’s objections to the reforms and included comprehensive responses in the materials submitted to the cabinet. In fact, the careful construction of the draft law ensured that any individual proposed reform could be removed without affecting the overall law. In addition to the reforms actually proposed in his draft law, Baroud also voiced support for a constitutional amendment lowering the voting age to 18 years of age, though privately he indicated to us that it would be difficult to stick to the existing electoral schedule if such an amendment were passed.

CABINET SURPRISE

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4. (SBU) Although the cabinet has made few substantive decisions since being seated in December, in mid-February it approved a number of Baroud’s proposals during several sessions of debate. On February 11, the cabinet voted to approve the most fundamental reform — the use of pre-printed ballots. Traditionally, candidates create and distribute their own ballots, which discourages voters from splitting their votes and allows parties visually to monitor voting at the polls. The proposal approved by the cabinet stipulates that Baroud’s interior ministry (MOI) will print a standardized ballot for each contest and distribute the ballot at the polls on election day. 5. (SBU) The most controversial reform, which the cabinet approved on February 17, was implementing proportional representation in all municipal elections, not just in larger districts as originally proposed by Baroud. Unlike parliamentary elections, municipal elections have not previously followed a sectarian formula. Local candidates have run on negotiated unified lists that were often affiliated with local powerbrokers. With this reform, each council would be drawn from competing electoral lists in proportion to the percentage of the vote each list garners in the poll. Although some political figures, such as Labor Minister Boutros Harb, have publicly decried the proposed change as opening the door to paralysis on local councils, its goal is to increase participation by outsiders, since any list that obtains at least 6% of the vote will win representation on the council. For his part, Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) head Michel Aoun lobbied for linking proportional representation to the splitting of Beirut into three electoral districts, but the latter proposal has not been approved. 6. (SBU) The cabinet also approved reserving a 20% quota for female candidates on each list instead of the 30% proposed by Baroud. That such a reform measure passed in any form is surprising, given the general absence of female politicians from Lebanese political life. While there is no legal bar to female political participation in politics, social mores and security concerns reduce female participation, and only four women — all of them from political dynasties — currently serve in parliament. However, many more women are involved in municipal government than in national government. Even so, the barriers women face are underscored by several recent studies indicating that women are actually more likely to vote for a male candidate than a woman, believing that a woman has too many family responsibilities and mistrusting her capacity.

NOT ALL PROPOSALS APPROVED

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7. (C) Despite initial internal disagreement the cabinet approved many of Baroud’s proposals, but some key proposals remain pending. Contacts say that Prime Minister Saad Hariri is opposed to one — direct election of council presidents and deputies — because he views strong, popularly elected council leaders in the majority Sunni cities as a threat to his position as Sunni political leader. Harb told us on February 18 that Aoun’s proposed division of the Beirut municipality, which Hariri and his Christian allies also oppose, would similarly not be approved.

8. (C) On February 17 the cabinet also gave its approval for parliament to debate Speaker Nabih Berri’s proposal to modify the constitution to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 years of age — something that did not figure in Baroud’s draft law. Such a change would add approximately 283,000 new voters, according to Baroud. Some Christian politicians insinuate that the amendment would sharply increase the number of Muslim voters, but Richard Chambers of the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) estimated that the overall increase in the percentage of Muslim voters would be approximately one percent, most of it concentrated in Muslim-majority regions. Even so, Christian leaders are attempting to link the amendment to a proposal to allow expatriate Lebanese (many of them Christian) to vote. Complicating matters further, contacts say Aoun opposes Berri’s proposed amendment — despite the fact that the two are coalition partners — fearing that Christian youth added to the rolls would vote against him. Berri has scheduled a parliamentary debate on the amendment for February 22 and 23.

DRAFT LAW MAY WITHER IN PARLIAMENT

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9. C) On February 17, the cabinet directed Baroud to redraft his proposed electoral law to consolidate the approved proposals, then submit it to parliament for action. The bill will have to pass through parliament’s defense, justice, and finance committees before coming to a floor vote. Many suspect that the law will wither along the way. Harb told us on February 18 that the cabinet approved the proposals so that it could appear to be active, but that all the disagreements aired in cabinet would play out in parliament. Baroud himself implied to the Ambassador on February 18 that the process in parliament would be slow but that “even if the law is not passed before the elections, we have put the ideas out for discussion.” Aoun meanwhile has said repeatedly to the press that it is more important to enact reforms than to hold elections on time. Future MP Oqab Saqr told poloff on February 18 that the battle over the elections would begin with the February 22 parliamentary debate on amending the constitution, during which he predicted the majority would stage a walk-out.

10. (C) COMMENT: Although getting the reforms out of the cabinet was merely the first step, Baroud is right that the debate has increased public awareness of the need for reform. The draft bill as a whole is not in the interest of any of the traditional political players, since it weakens the ability of powerbrokers to manipulate the electoral system. Although the motivation varies from party to party and confession to confession, all sides have an interest in minimizing the impact of the proposed reforms.

SISON

What Beirut’s Election Results Tell: Lebanon Can Hope For Change

This post was written with Elie Fares from A Separate State of Mind.

As promised earlier, this is the more detailed look at how Beirut voted, beyond the surprisingly great outing of the civil movement Beirut Madinati’s list, which even though it did not get actual seats, it still has plenty to celebrate.

It is important to note that in the most optimistic of cases, the chances for any list other than the list of the political parties to win was next to zero.

Despite the context of the trash crisis, rising corruption, overall voter discontentment, parliament extending its mandate twice, etc… the math of the Beirut electoral equation was never in favor of any non-political movement: the division of districts, the system, demographics, the sectarian propaganda – The Bierteh list had tried to attract voters – especially Christian ones – by proposing a 50-50 Christian/Muslim list, although Beirut Madinati had also kept the same quota.

So no, the cards were not the best that could be given for Beirut Madinati, or any other movement for that matter, simply because those cards were being played on a table that served only one side: the political establishment.

As a result of all of the above, the loudest of voters on Sunday was the low turnout.

20% Voted:

This is not a historically low number. In 2010, 18% of Beirutis voted. Beirutis simply do not vote in Municipal elections, and only do so at slightly higher numbers in parliamentary ones: 33% in 2009.

This is due to many factors. Voter learned helplessness is an important one, but so is the feel that there really isn’t a contest to begin with further increasing the sense of voter apathy. 33% voted in 1998, and the lower turnout since should be enough to tell you how much people lost faith.

Many partisan voters were also not willing to vote for the “zayy ma hiye” list but did not want to break lines.

Achrafieh El Bidayi:

Beirut Madinati won the Beirut 1 district with around 60% of the vote, a blow to the rallying calls of Christian parties in the area for their supporters to vote for the Bierti’s list. The 60% figure is not only exclusive to the mostly-Christian Beirut 1, but is also applicable to the Christian vote in the rest of Beirut.

This doesn’t mean the weight of the LF and FPM combined is 40%. Many LF and FPM leaning voters voted for Beirut Madinati more against Hariri, but it sets the precedence that politically affiliated people can go beyond their affiliations and vote in a way that breaks what they were instructed to do.

Boycotts from the bases of the FPM, LF, and Kataeb were also there on election day, as a sign of disagreement with the recent choices of their parties: The FPM electorate isn’t a fan of Hariri; the LF base isn’t a fan of an alliance with the FPM, and the Kataeb aren’t fans of anything.

This lack of enthusiasm was probably one of the causes of the lower turnout in Christian polling stations.

The context of such a vote, however, is probably not sectarian as is circulating. Achrafieh is one of Beirut’s higher socioeconomic areas, with higher income and education rates. You’ll probably see a similar phenomenon in the higher socio-economic districts of Beirut III. Those residents are more likely to vote for issues such as reform, transportation and trash sorting. Those are also the voters that are the less afraid of change.

Many if not all of Lebanon’s parties count on clientelism to widen their electoral base. In the higher socio-economic status, the reliance of the electorate on the mainstream parties will be less. Those voters don’t need their political parties in the neo-socialist way that most parties in Lebanon function. In Achrafieh, for example, the LF and FPM do not provide medical services, free education, job opportunities for Achrafieh voters as much as the other parties in other districts, so throughout the years, the electorate managed to develop an independence from traditional Christian parties.

The Example Of Tariq El Jdide: Anyone Can Be Reached

Sectarian talk is terrible, but is a necessary evil until the political system is not one where people go and vote in segregation based on how they pray. If you crunch Beirut’s numbers, you will end up with a rough figure of around 30% of the Sunni vote not going to Hariri.

This is probably as important, if not more, than BM winning 60% of the vote in Beirut 1.

I don’t believe we can call this a dissent from the Future Movement yet, but it is a continuation of the gradual and progressive Sunni dislike of the way Saad Hariri is running things, even with him having a rise of popularity after his return.

The reason the Future Movement won is not because voters are “sheep.” It’s because the Future Movement, through various governmental policies, has forced the people of many Sunni areas to always remain in need for their intervention to get the basic necessities that should be a right for every Lebanese citizen, which many in other areas have access to without needing their political parties: do not cut the hand that feeds you.

The political framework of the elections is important. They come at a time when Sunnis in Lebanon feel increasingly threatened by being categorized as potential-Islamists, to the background of a party in power fighting for a regime they do not approve of in Syria.

The need to not break rank was never greater. They may not approve of Hariri, but this was not the time to show it, and yet 30% did. The situation in the country is not one where sects have the prerogative to show cracks in their facade, or have we forgotten how Christians have also forced a seemingly unbreakable veneer over the past few months as well?

All of this makes the 30% figure of Sunnis who did not vote for Hariri all the more impressive and courageous. It’s the kind of percentage that breaks taboos.

Moving Forward:

The election’s overall results are telling. In Beirut I, the LF representative Elie Yahchouchi and the FPM’s Traboulsi lead their allies in the FM by around 800 votes (of around 6500 the list got). In Beirut II, with its important Shia and Armenian electorate, almost all of the winning candidates from LB are in the 9000 votes region. One candidate however, Amal’s representative, stands out as having 10000 votes. In the third district, Yahchouchi and Traboulsi are 5000 votes behind the FM’s candidates.

The difference between the first and the last of list is around 8000 votes for LB, and 3000 votes for BM. In other words, most of those who voted BM did not make major changes to their lists (“tochtib”) and were convinced with almost all of BM’s candidates, while the base of every single party in power was modifying the names.

That is the biggest proof that the ruling coalition is unstable, and that in 2017, even a minor split between the parties in power can lower that 60% and give way to an independent breakthrough. Check the results here.

But now is time to look ahead.

Our voting process needs to be modernized. 36 hours to go through Beirut’s voting results is a disgrace in 2016. There are no excuses.

The rhetoric we need to adopt should never call those who do not vote the way we want sheep or other varieties of animals. It is demeaning, and not any different than the system we want to change. Such horrific name-calling only alienates voters from your platform. The core of democracy is one where many will not vote the way you find is best.

Our rhetoric should also be more inclusive, and less elitist. Our bubble in which we believe our paradigm of Lebanese politics is scripture is exclusive to the people that are reached by our message, but the bulk of voters exist outside of that bubble. We need to be aware that what we know and believe is true doesn’t translate to others and work on reforming our message to make it holistic.

This means that calls to divide Beirut into smaller districts just because Achrafieh voted one way and Tariq el Jdide voted another are horrifyingly xenophobic. Beirut is a city that is 18 km2 with 500,000 voters only. It is too small to be divided. We need policies to bring people together, not segregate them into separate cantons.

Accomplishing so starts by championing policies to better the conditions of all Beirutis, especially those that exist in impoverished areas. Beirut Madinati did not, for instance, campaign as much as it should have in Tariq el Jdide.

Political parties in the country keep people at bay by keeping them afraid and hungry. Keep them as such, and they remain at their mercy. The first step in breaking this political hegemony is to make them need their political parties less: advocate for better schools, better and more comprehensive healthcare, fight economic inflation, raise the minimum wage, adopt a better taxing scheme, etc…

Such measures, however, cannot be done by simply complaining on Facebook. Modernizing our elections isn’t only about getting electronic voting machines, but also about having an electoral law that is fitting of the year 2016. The only law that can work to represent all different sections of Lebanon’s society is a law based on proportional representation. If such a law were adopted, for example, Beirut Madinati would have obtained 9 seats out of the available 24 on Sunday.

Proportional representation, as proposed during a cabinet meeting in 2010 tackling the municipal electoral law, is one of many reforms, such as electing the mayor directly from the people, and a 30% women quota, that are napping in parliament. The establishment is making it harder, but that shouldn’t mean that pressure should stop.

We also need to realize that, despite disagreeing with them, political parties are not going away. If we are to leave a mark, we have to find a framework in which we organize into a party that can compete better in elections, in politics and do so in unity: one of our biggest failings in this election was having like-minded people run on two different lists.

Today, we should be cautiously optimistic at what the future holds. Change in Lebanon is not a sudden process. It’s a tedious affair that needs planning over many years. Start planning for 2017’s parliamentary elections today and 2022’s municipal elections yesterday. Do not despair, and most importantly, always challenge the status quo regardless of how comfortable you are in it.

UPDATE 1 (Ramez here): This post was written before the ministry published the official results, and was based on the estimations of a table including BM votes and the establishment lists’ votes only (see Elie’s blog post). With more official detailed results made available for all candidates, the numbers become a bit different: Nahas got 6000 votes, and many other candidates got thousands of votes. All in all, BM gets around 30% (not 40) and LB gets around 45% (not 60) of the 95000 who voted, which shows one more thing: That the establishment did not even get an absolute majority, and that BM and MMfidawla’s reach could have been far better to attract those voters who defected from the parties in power and did not vote with those two lists. The updated numbers aren’t necessarily bad for BM, but are extremely horrible for the establishment that couldn’t even secure an absolute majority in the overall vote of the capital, and we’re still talking about a 20% turnout. Another thing: The myth that “if Nahas and BM had joined forces they would have won” has been debunked: Nahas got the most votes on his list (6920), and Mneimneh got the most votes on BM’s side (319333). Even if we suppose that voters didn’t add Nahas’s name at all while voting BM (a lot of them did) which means that there aren’t common voters for the two, both lists would have still gotten a maximum of 38853 votes. That’s still lower than the lestablishment candidate with the lowest result, Yahchouchi, with 38989 votes. So succeeding wasn’t about alliances of anti-establishment parties as much as it was a difficulty in reaching potential voters, which is a shame.

I can go deeper with the analysis, but I’ll need more data, so if you spot detailed numbers (for every one of the 12 sub-districts), link me and I’ll be glad to crunch the data.

UPDATE 2 (Ramez again here): Even more detailed data is now available on the ministry’s website (by قلم and subdistrict). I’ll write something more detailed as soon as I can but I’m going to need some time to crunch the data (don’t expect anything before summer, there are hundreds of tables 😛 ).

The Month that Doesn’t Count

A Lebanese woman walks past posters of candidates for the upcoming Beirut municipal elections on a shop window in the Lebanese capital’s Christian dominated neighbourhood of Ashrafiyeh on May 4, 2016. Municipal elections in Lebanon take place every six years, with political parties often forming joint candidate lists. The vote on May 8, 2016, is the first of any kind in Lebanon since the last municipal elections in 2010. Image source: Patrick Baz – Getty images

This is the 20th post in a series of monthly posts covering the presidential elections. This post is about the month of April (and the first few days of May) 2016.

In Lebanese politics, there are months that “count”, and months that “don’t count” when it comes to political maneuvering. There’s a pattern when it comes to policy making: short periods of “active” deadlocks – full of efficient political maneuvering that eventually give you results – are often followed by even shorter periods of political stability. After the shorter periods comes a long – very long period – of deadlock that is extremely similar to what they call in football a “dead rubber match” (a match that has no effect on the winner and loser of the series, other than the number of matches won and lost). The dead rubber period can be full of maneuvers, or it can simply have no political developments at all. It all depends on the laziness of Lebanese politicians.

This month – just like the ones before – was mostly a dead rubber period, but not because Lebanese politicians were lazy. In fact, they were even more focused than before, concentrating all their efforts on the municipal elections. Municipal elections in Lebanon are an extremely complicated process known to bring rivals together (the example of Beirut) but also create tensions between allies (the example of Zahle), so the whole maneuvering mechanism becomes useless and old-fashioned. People are no longer influenced by a politician’s national speech, and start instead thinking about more than 10000 local seats to fill in municipal councils. On the bright side, that means that this post will be a lot shorter than the previous monthly posts, since there were very few politicians who cared to maneuver on a nation-wide scale.

Except Jumblatt. Jumblatt was hyperactive.

The bey of Mukhtara was extremely hyperactive this month: He politically clashed with Abdelmenhem Youssef, a ministry of telecommunications official close to the FM – theoretically an ally – accusing him of corruption, then politically clashed with the mayor of Beirut – theoretically an ally, before finally politically clashing with the minister of interior – also theoretically an ally. And finally, after accusing all of those FM loyalists with corruption, he eventually allied himself with the FM in Beirut municipal elections. You know, because Walid Jumblatt.

But the most important event of the month was Jumblatt’s decision to resign from parliament – after extending his term twice, because again, Walid Jumblatt. The PSP leader’s maneuver is brilliant: He promised to resign only when the parliament meets in a legislative session. If there’s something Lebanon’s Christian parties agree on, it’s the fact that legislating in the middle of a presidential vacancy is unconstitutional. It made them unite in November, and only two of the three major parties eventually attended the last legislative session, after making an issue out of it and getting something in return. There has been a lot of talk of a legislative session happening soon, and as Berri was trying to push his agenda of convening the parliament to legislate, Jumblatt’s move – in a way – was meant to put pressure on the other parties to make the legislative session possible: No one likes Jumblatt in parliament, and although his presence inside or outside parliament would be the same, it would nevertheless be nice for the Christian parties to imagine themselves electing a president in a Walid-Jumblat-less parliament. Christian parties aren’t exactly fans of Berri, especially since the speaker endorsed Frangieh in March, and have since then tried to thwart all of his moves. But Jumblatt wasn’t only trying to tempt the Christian parties into participating in legislative sessions: By resigning (he eventually probably won’t), he creates a vacancy for his son Taymour to get elected unopposed (who is going to run against the heir of Mukhtara in by-elections one year before elections?) which means that Taymour would gain more power and experience a year before the decisive general elections in 2017, with Abu Taymour acting as his mentor and the godfather of the party. That was already Walid Jumblatt’s plan since last year (here’s a nice post about that, in case you forgot), when he told us all he was going to resign, then eventually did not – again, because Walid Jumblatt.

And Gemayel. Gemayel was hyperactive too.

As Aoun and Geagea were using their new alliance to blame the Muslim ally of their new Christian ally for not supporting their new Christian candidate (sorry for that complicated sentence), Sami Gemayel was micro-maneuvering in the last ten days in April by finally naming five presidential candidates – The Kataeb have long been crticized for standing in the way of all of the mainstream candidacies without providing an alternative. Curiously, and among the five candidates, you’ll find the name of Michel Aoun’s son-in-law. Yeah, not Gebran Bassil, the son-in-law currently in charge of the FPM, but the other one, Chamel Roukoz, whose popularity is a big threat on the FPM’s new number 1. By embracing the candidacy of the son-in-law of one of the two most popular candidates, that happens not to be the son-in-law leading the party, and also happens to be the son-in-law who is a retired general – apparently 18 years of generals in Baabda aren’t enough, the Kataeb are trying to turn the Aounists on one another.

Nice maneuver, but it’s a bit cliché: The FM tried something similar in July and August, and it wasn’t too effective.

The experience of Sleiman Frangieh

Meanwhile, while all the other Christian parties were spending all their efforts on discussing rumors of tawteen, Frangieh, who is by now supported by almost every mainstream Muslim party in the republic, ignored the maneuvering of the LF, the Kataeb, and the FPM, did not fall into the trap – like a boss – of even mentioning the subject, and from Tripoli, “rejected attempts to eliminate Lebanon’s Arab identity”. Those of you who read the blog probably already know by now that changing the subject is the most efficient way of ending a political maneuver – no matter how professional that maneuver is. It’s in times like these that you realize Frangieh has 15 extra years of experience in the domain than the other three of the Maronite four.

Oh, and in case you wondered, the parliament becomes even more unconstitutional this Monday.

Happy voting this May. Choose change.

713 days since the 25th of May (presidential elections). 549 days since the 5th of November (second parliamentary extension) .

The Example of Beirut Madinati: Change Is Possible

Beirut Municipality

For a country that has postponed elections three times in the past 12 years and that has been polarized between two political coalitions competing and eventually sharing power in almost every state institution, the month of May 2016 will be an exception in Lebanon’s modern political history: The Lebanese will vote for the first time since 2010, and this time – at least in Beirut – there is a third choice available. To put it in the campaign’s own words, Beirut Madinati is a volunteer-led campaign to elect a municipal council of qualified, politically unaffiliated individuals in the upcoming contest of May 2016, and, once in office, to support them in implementing a people-centered program that prioritizes livability in our storied city.

Beirut Madinati has a plan for the city, and it’s a detailed and realistic one [you can find an expanded version here] addressing 10 key points (more details on their website):

1.MOBILITY

Today about 70% of trips in Beirut rely on the use of private cars. At peak hours, most of these cars move at the speed of a pedestrian walking at a normal pace. Only 3% of current trips are conducted by walking and/or biking. The rest relies on shared modes of transportation. Within 6 years only 45% of trips will be conducted by private cars, and at least 15% will be by walking or biking. The remaining 40% will be through shared transportation.

2.GREENERY & PUBLIC SPACE

Today Beirut offers less than 1m2/person of green open space while the World Health Organization recommends at least 9 m2/person. Within 6 years we will increase that number to at least 5m2/capita.

3.HOUSING

Make housing more affordable for future homeowners and tenants.Today the average price of an apartment is more than $570,000, or 1270 times the minimum monthly wage. At this rate, more than half of the children in Beirut today will not be able to secure a home in the city.

4.WASTE MANAGEMENT

Today Beirut produces 600 tons/day of solid waste. 90% of this waste is landfilled despite the fact that almost all of it recyclable. Within 6 years Beirut will recycle at least 40% of its solid waste, and implement management methods that are in compliance with best practices world wide.

5.NATURAL HERITAGE

Today the Beirut coastline is largely occupied by private complexes, restaurants, and other facilities that block access and view to the sea. Within 6 years we will establish an interlinked network of public gardens, open spaces, a publicly accessible waterfront and natural and architectural heritage.

6.COMMUNITY SPACES& SERVICES

Today Beirut has only three public libraries, built in partnership between the Municipality and an NGO, As-Sabeel. No new library has been built in the past 6 years. The city has no other public community centers. Within 6 years we will double the number of public libraries and enhance the larger infrastructure of social services.

7.SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Today unemployment stands at double its 2011 level, and one in four job seekers, half of whom are youth, cannot find a job. Many of the poverty pockets are located within Beirut and the gap between rich and poor is widening. Businesses have difficulties growing and surviving while many households suffer from the rising cost of living. Within 6 years the municipality will have installed local markets for small producers and buyers. It will contribute to an enabling environment for local entrepreneurship in sectors of relevance to the city’s economy and reduce entrepreneurs’ operational and infrastructural costs. The Municipality will attach a social clause to every public work contract that requires contractors to consider the social impacts of their implementation strategies.

8.ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

Integrate principles of environmental sustainability and stewardship across all regulatory and operational interventions of the municipality, particularly in relation to the building development sector. Within 6 years we will renovate municipal buildings to become exemplars of green buildings, and establish incentives and clear design guidelines for new construction projects.

9.HEALTH AND SAFETY

Today Beirut’s environment is a threat to everyday health because of poor air quality, poor levels of cleanliness, and the absence of monitoring of our air, water, and physical environment. Within 6 years we will have clean city streets and will remove the large open-air waste bins that sit in our streets. To monitor water quality and set up a plan with the Beirut Water Authority to alleviate the water problems and their symptoms. To implement a city-wide lighting plan that improves night safety.

10.GOVERNANCE

Improve the organizational structure of the Municipality, train its staff, and address the main institutional challenges that have plagued the performance of councils for decades.

I might not be from the city, but I spend half my day there. Many – if not most – Lebanese either live or work in the city and its suburbs. It is Lebanon’s capital and the country’s biggest city, and yet when a Lebanese citizen visits it, Beirut humiliates him in every possible way there is. I only kept the today vs the Within 6 years parts of Beirut Madinati’s summarized program for a reason: The status-quo is no longer bearable. And no matter how much it’s difficult, the idea that change isn’t possible is an illusion the Lebanese political establishment created only to convince the people that the same politicians will always win the same seats (“شو الها معنى الانتخابات اذا رح يرجعو يجو هني ذاتن”) – the truth is that they won’t win unless you let them win with your vote. The city stinks nowadays – and I mean that in a very literal way. If that is not reason enough to even consider the election of independent candidates who actually know what they are doing and who are distancing themselves from the Lebanese game of sectarianism and petty politics, I don’t know what is.

“Beirut Madinati” means “Beirut, my city”. Beirut is indeed your city, and you should start by taking it back. A 21% voter turnout in 2010 means that there is a silent majority in the city that has lost hope in the system. This May, Beirut’s voters should turn the table upside down on the establishment. Beirut Madinati is offering everything the Lebanese authorities has failed at: A program. A realistic program. Solutions. Gender equality. Transparency. Communication. A spirit of cooperation. Independent candidates. Independent candidates giving hope to the city. Independent candidates whose presence in the municipality makes sense. The candidates are urban planners, artists, historians, architects, activists, singers, doctors, advocates for people with disability, citizens of Beirut. [You can check the full list of names here]

The Lebanese syndrome of protesting the authorities when the party you support is part of that authority must end. The biggest illusion in Lebanese politics is when citizens keep expecting change from the same individuals in power. There can be no progress without accountability, and election day is the day of reckoning. It’s not only about Beirut Madinati: It’s about sending a wider message: that you don’t approve of the parties in power. That the parties that cannot vote a budget in parliament cannot be held accountable with Lebanon’s biggest municipality budget. That the parties that cannot agree on an president in parliament cannot be trusted with voting on crucial municipal decisions. That the parties that could not share a cabinet successfully cannot be allowed to share the country’s most prestigious municipal council. That the parties that have drowned the country in garbage and political maneuvers have to be stopped, everywhere possible, as soon as possible.

Lebanon’s municipal elections are (obviously) always too locally-oriented and – as if Lebanese politics isn’t already complicated – they actually even involve families competing over seats. The Beauty of Beirut is that the city is too big for all those things to really matter. True, they’ll always be there, but they’ll be there on a lesser scale: On the 8th of May, Beirut will not be choosing between family representatives, sectarian leaders, businessmen, and micro-Zaims. It will be choosing between its past and its future, between the status-quo and the light at the end of the tunnel, between the establishment and reform.

This May, raise your voice and vote in your village/city, no matter where you’re from. Spread Beirut Madinati’s ideas in all of Lebanon’s municipalities. They should be more contagious than our politicans’ sectarianism. We don’t always have an opportunity to vote in this country, so make it count.

In the name of the stinking status-quo and the benefit of the doubt, Moulahazat endorses Beirut Madinati. Spread the word. Progress is possible.

Berri and Hariri in WikiLeaks: Can You Trust Anyone in Lebanese Politics?

Berri Hariri

This is the 14th post in a series of monthly posts covering (forgotten/ignored) WikiLeaks cables about Lebanon.

“How, Berri asked, can he trust Saad again.”

In case you missed it, Speaker Berri formally officially endorsed Saad Hariri’s official presidential candidate Sleiman Frangieh this March. The move – signaling an FM-Amal – rapprochement, is also probably leading Hezbollah to reconsider their position regarding the presidential election, meaning that the deadlock might very well end soon (or not. Most probably not). Which is why this month’s WikiLeaks cable is about a dialogue between Berri and Feltman on the ministerial resignations (remember when the five Shia ministers resigned?) that happened 10 years ago – the goal was to look for something interesting in WikiLeaks regarding the relationship between Hariri and Berri . In this cable – in which you’ll see the amazing maneuvering powers of Lebanon’s speaker of the parliament – Berri asks “how can he trust Saad again”. So as Berri becomes the first major politician outside the FM to endorse Hariri’s presidential candidate, the speaker’s rethorical question to Jeffrey Feltman in 2006 is more important than ever: Not only you can’t trust anyone in Lebanese politics, you also apparently can’t trust anyone saying they can’t trust anyone in Lebanese politics.

Enjoy the cable. It’s 10 years old, but still as relevant as ever. Some events might change but the maneuvering remains.

BERRI CLAIMS MARCH 14 PERFIDY, HINTS AT TIME BUT LITTLE FLEXIBILITY
Date: 2006 November 18, 15:15 (Saturday)	Canonical ID: 06BEIRUT3653_a

B. STATE 184145 Classified By: Jeffrey Feltman, Ambassador, per 1.4 (b) and (d).

SUMMARY AND COMMENT

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1. (S) In a 11/18 meeting with the Ambassador, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri portrayed himself as the only adult amidst squabbling, selfish children. He claimed success twice already in preventing street demonstrations. Yet his attempts to find a way out of Lebanon’s political mess was undermined when MP Saad Hariri and Prime Minister Fouad Sinora betrayed him — Hariri by backing out of a deal to trade approval of the special tribunal for a blocking minority in the cabinet, and Siniora by breaking a promise to wait three more days before tabling the tribunal documents before the cabinet. Berri claimed to remain personally opposed to street action, but, so far, the March 14 leaders had given him nothing workable to convince Hizballah and Michel Aoun to back down. He rejected a compromise proposed by Siniora (ref A) as too little, too late. Berri undermined his vow of support for the special tribunal by repeatedly noting Hizballah’s need to understand the details.

2. (S) After threatening that it is sometimes better to build a new house than fix an old one beyond repair, Berri’s own cabinet compromise sounded suspiciously similar to Berri’s opening position: a blocking minority in the current cabinet. Perhaps, Berri conceded, that blocking minority could offer guarantees not to trigger a cabinet collapse, if those squabbling children would agree to a larger understanding encompassing a broad range of issues ahead of time. Berri seemed to be hinting that more time was possible to broker a deal but that he had little flexibility to offer on substance. While expressing bitterness against Siniora in particular, Berri expressed solidarity with the PM regarding Lebanon’s Independence Day on November 22: if, as some predict, President Emile Lahoud blocks Siniora’s participation in the official commemoration, Berri, too, will stay away. Berri expressed delight over the possibility of visiting the United States (ref B) but, asking that any invitation be deferred for now, said that he needed to keep cooking in the Lebanon kitchen. End summary and comment.

THE FURY OF A SPEAKER SCORNED

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3. (S) Berri spent most of the unusually long meeting (75 minutes — keeping berobed Shia clerics cooling their heels in his waiting room) on a detailed, blow-by-blow, day-by-day, insult-by-insult review of the lead-up to the resignation of the five Shia ministers a week ago (11/11). As Berri’s account would tire even the most indefatigable readers of our cables, we will summarize it here: both Saad Hariri and Fouad Siniora are not to be trusted. Both shamelessly betrayed the Speaker, who had always offered them the hand of genuine partnership. In Saad’s case, he offered a deal to Berri and Mohammed Raad (representing Hizballah) on the margins of the 11/9 consultations: if March 8 and Aoun will commit to the special tribunal, then March 14 will concede to the March 8-Aoun demand for a one-third-plus-one blocking minority in a reshaped cabinet. To Berri’s professed shock, by Saturday that deal was off the table, with Samir Ja’ja’, not Saad, conveying the bad news. How, Berri asked, can he trust Saad again. He is not serious; he is not mature. And, no, Hariri had not asked to visit Berri since Berri’s return from Teheran, although Berri will receive him if asked.

4. (S) Siniora’s sins seemed to loom larger in Berri’s mind. Siniora repeated his mistake of December 12, 2005. Then — the day of Gebran Tueni’s assassination and the cabinet discussion on whether to to ask the UN to set up a special tribunal — Berri had asked Siniora to postpone discussion from Monday to Thursday, so that he would have time to work the issue with “my allies” (i.e., Hizballah). Siniora refused, and Berri had no choice but to go along with the Shia cabinet walk-out that lasted seven weeks. This time, Siniora did not call Berri until 7 p.m. on Friday (11/10), ten hours after he first received the draft tribunal documents from UN envoy Geir Pedersen. Compounding his mistakes, the PM did not convey the texts to Berri until three hours later. Berri then extracted a promise from Siniora to delay the cabinet meetnig until the following Thursday (11/16), after Berri’s return from Teheran, so that

BEIRUT 00003653 002 OF 004

Berri had time, again, to get Hizballah on board. Imagine the shock, Berri said, when he learned in the 11/11 consultative session that, despite his promise to Berri, Siniora had deviously proceeded to schedule the tribunal debate on Monday. While Siniora had asked to see Berri after Berri’s return, Berri said that he is refusing to give “that politically stupid man” an appointment.

HOPING, FOR A THIRD TIME, TO STOP STREET PROTESTS

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5. (S) What is sad, Berri said, is that he already prevented Hizballah and Aounist forces from launching massive street demonstrations twice in recent weeks: once on August 14 and once after Ramadan. Both times, Berri found an excuse that Hassan Nasrallah and Michel Aoun could not refuse, most recently in his post-Ramadan call for a round of consultations. Both Hizballah and Aoun were annoyed with him for his delaying tactics. Vowing that he remained opposed to street demonstrations, he said that, nevertheless, if Hizballah and Aoun insist on them, “then you will see Amal, too.” Now, with March 8-Aoun calling for street demonstrations and March 14 calling for counter demonstrations, Berri wants to find a way out. But no one on March 14 is giving him anything to work with. “Put something in my hand,” Berri said, something that he can sell to Hizballah and Aoun.

SINIORA’S COMPROMISE UNACCEPTABLE; HIZBALLAH, AOUN WANT ALL NEW CABINET

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6. (S) The Ambassador raised Siniora’s proposal for a 30-member cabinet. As explained in ref A, that proposal, by reserving two ministerial slots for “neutral” figures who would not vote in critical cases, denied the majority the two-thirds and the minority the blocking one-third-plus-one. Each side could claim victory, making it a reasonable compromise. Berri shook his head: it violates the Taif accord and the constitution to have two ministers who refrain from voting; it throws the whole confessional balance off kilter. Berri does not want to set the precedent of fiddling with Taif. Moreover, Hizballah and Michel Aoun have now raised the stakes, wanting Siniora thrown out and an entirely new cabinet formed. What might have been possible two weeks ago is no longer acceptable to Hizballah and Michel Aoun, who feel that they will prevail and do not need to settle for little. They want Siniora out altogether. Sometimes, Berri said, it is easier to build a new house than to try to restore an old house that is beyond repair.

BERRI TRIES TO PUT A SHINE ON MARCH 8-AOUN’S ORIGINAL DEMAND

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7. (S) Pressed by the Ambassador, Berri said that, given sufficient ammunition, he thought he could still sell the one-third-plus-one blocking minority to Hizballah and Aoun, despite their shared desire for much more. Berri argued that, in general, Lebanon’s cabinets operate by consensus anyway, so the majority would not behave much differently than it had from July 2005 until now under such a scenario. Disagreeing, the Ambassador asked why March 14 should surrender to having the threat of cabinet collapse (triggered when one-third-plus-one of the ministers of any cabinet submit their resignation) over their heads. That problem, Berri said, could be resolved: by agreeing ahead of time on major national issues — which Berri listed as UNSCR 1701 implementation, the special tribunal, an election law, and economic/institutional reform needed for Paris III to succeed — then the danger of a cabinet resignation will be avoided. Suggesting that he knows such an agreement would take a long time, Berri said that he could come up with “guarantees” to March 14 that the one-third-plus-one minority will not be used to trigger the cabinet collapse. As for the presidency, Berri said that he is more eager than anyone to kick Emile Lahoud out of Baabda Palace, “but you need to help us with the Syrians — get the Syrians to agree.”

ARE THE TRIBUNAL, 1701 THE REAL ISSUES?

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8. (S) The Ambassador said that he did not understand Berri’s position: if the cabinet would operate always by consensus and the blocking minority willingly gives up its BEIRUT 00003653 003 OF 004 right to topple the cabinet, then March 8-Aoun should settle for the Siniora compromise. The practical results would be the same, and the current turmoil would end, to everyone’s relief. There is no reason to frighten the population with talk of demosntrations. In considering Berri’s position, the Ambassador said that he could not help but conclude that the real motivation of March 8, probably scripted by Syria, was to prevent the tribunal and further implementation of UNSCR 1701. “Who said I oppose the tribunal?” Berri asked, describing himself as “the first” to back the concept. Expressing strong support for UNIFIL’s stabilizing role and economic benefits, he claimed to be one of the many proud fathers who lent genetic material to the birth of UNSCR 1701. Asked by the Ambassador how deep the Syrian opposition really is to the tribunal, Berri said that he does not, and will not, speak for Damascus. During what turned into a lengthy debate over the tribunal and his claims of support for it, Berri said repeatedly that, while Hizballah also supported the concept of the tribunal, it was only reasonable that Hizballah would want to study the details.

SHOWING SOLIDARITY WITH SINIORA ON INDEPENDENCE DAY

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9. (S) The Ambassador asked Berri whether he would participate in Lebanon’s official commemoration of Independence Day on November 22. Yes, Berri said, but only if Siniora were included. Despite being furious with Siniora (and scrupulously dodging the Ambassador’s questions about whether he considered Siniora to be a fully empowered sitting prime minister), Berri said that it is tradition for all three of Lebanon’s “presidents” to participate. Lebanon’s confessional balance requires it. If Lahoud, to reinforce his argument that Siniora’s cabinet is illegal, denies Siniora a place in the Baabda Palace receiving line, then Berri will boycott, too. But Berri did not expect Lahoud to “go that far.”

DEFERRING A WASHINGTON INVITATION

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10. (S) As the meeting came to a close as nervous aides entered the room with increasing frequency to tap their watches, the Ambassador told Berri that he concluded that the Speaker is looking for ways to buy more time, in hopes of avoiding street demonstrations. Berri nodded. Drawing on ref B, the Ambassador asked whether Berri would therefore find a trip to Washington to be tactically useful. If Berri wants, we can consider an invitation. Maybe the announcement of a trip to Washington could provide him the pretext to convince people to avoid the street, as people will want to hear about his U.S. consultations before plotting their next moves. Berri expressed delight with the idea but asked that any invitation be deferred for now. “Let’s keep this idea between you and me.” The time is not right, he said, claiming that he needed to “keep cooking in the Lebanese kitchen.”

COMMENT

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11. (S) To believe Berri’s feelings are as bruised by Hariri and Siniora’s betrayals as he claims, one would also be required to buy the argument that Berri trusted anyone but Berri in the first place. His refusal to receive Siniora is probably linked to Syria’s orders to discredit the PM more than to Berri’s hurt. (And we wonder if he will be able to maintain his Independence Day solidarity with Siniora, if Lahoud blocks Siniora’s participation in the official ceremonies.) Reading between the lines and monitoring his body language and public remarks, we believe that Berri has started to gain some traction in convincing Hizballah and Aoun — and perhaps Syria and Iran — to wait before blowing up Lebanon. But we do not see any flexibility on the substance of the political debate. His comments on needing a “new house” rather than a “restored house” correspond with other reports that Hizballah and Aoun are hardening their positions. On Berri’s part, we suspect that this is all bluffing in an attempt to make the “one-third-plus-one” blocking minority demand look reasonable. His comments about Hizballah’s need to study the details of the tribunal documents — when we know that Minister of Justice Charles Rizk has scrupulously kept Hizballah informed of each tribunal development — are ominous. While we don’t want to exaggerate the length of Berri’s leash tethering him to his

BEIRUT 00003653 004 OF 004

more powerful Hizballah alies, we hope that the visible delight he expressed at the suggestion of an possible invitation to Washington will help bolster his resolve to seek a solution short of street demonstrations.

FELTMAN

The Orange and the Pistachio

Aoun meets with Frangieh on December 9, 2015 in Rabieh. I also have no idea who the person in the painting is, although trusted sources (“مصادر مطلعة”, à la Lebanese media) say she might be the next Lebanese president. (Image source: Annahar)

This is the 19th post in a series of monthly posts covering the presidential elections. This post is about the month of March 2016.

The month of March 2016 was overloaded with political developments. Let’s start with the garbage. After receiving the green light from the supreme council of the tribal federation , the Lebanese government took it upon itself to end the trash crisis by:

1) turning a beach resort (Costa Brava)… into a landfill.
2) reopening the Burj Hammoud landfill that was {as it turns out, temporarily} closed since 1997.
3)”temporarily” (yeah, right) reopening another landfill – Naameh – that was ironically supposed to be the government’s temporary emergency plan to close the Burj Hammoud dump in 1998 and that temporarily lasted for more than 17 years.

So while the government was back to square one, spending the second half of March solving the consequences of a problem by making the initial problem even worse, Lebanon’s politicians were finally free to focus on their maneuvers (and of course, the municipal elections in May).

The revelation of the year

I’m going to start with the most important development of the past six months (even more relevant than Hariri endorsing Frangieh or Geagea endorsing Aoun). For the first time since it became clear the presidential battle was featuring Aoun against Frangieh, speaker Berri (finally) officially took a side, and called for the election of Sleiman Frangieh as president. In February, we received formal proof that Berri wasn’t going to vote for Aoun, but not that Amal was officially standing with Frangieh. True, we had always felt the he wasn’t exactly a fan of Aoun and his excitement when Frangieh’s name was mentioned in November was too real to hide, but Amal’s leader, had – until March 2016 – always kept a very vague stance when it came to the presidential elections, probably in order to give an impression that the March 8 alliance was still less damaged than the March 14 one by the recent Frangieh-Aoun confrontation. But then again, Berri didn’t just endorse Frangieh on the 19th of March: He called upon Hezbollah to vote with Frangieh too. That was a political declaration of war for the FPM. Why did Berri do it? and why now? Perhaps Berri was encouraged by the official endorsement of Frangieh by Hariri on the 14th of February. There are multiple theories – and frankly – it doesn’t really matter, because what is done is done: Berri’s move will now encourage Jumblatt to be more public about his support to Frangieh, and has officially ended the March 8 and 14 alliances – at least when it came to presidential politics.

The war on Bassil continues

As the diplomatic crisis with the Gulf continued this month and Rifi, who saw opportunity in the disorder, was still trying to make the best out of it, the political war against the new FPM leader Gebran Bassil continued. It was the environment minister, Mohamad Machnouk, who was tasked by his ally, PM Salam to represent Lebanon at the Indonesia summit, which was (more or less) an insult against Lebanon’s foreign affairs minister, Bassil. So as the cliché political clash between Salam, Hariri, Nasrallah, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jupiter, and Mars about the Israeli conflict, Saudi Arabia and Hezbollah’s weapons continued, the FPM was by the last week of March under a huge amount of pressure: Frangieh was gaining momentum again, Aoun had officially lost Berri, and Bassil was blamed by March 14 for the entire diplomatic crisis. Even Hariri chose to kindly remind the world that he will not vote for Aoun and “threw the presidential file in Hezbollah’s court”. That very same week, al-Liwaa newspaper reported that Russia is backing the election of Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh as president, and Hariri’s meetings with both Lavrov and Putin in the last days of the month are enough to make any other presidential candidate panic. I don’t like conspiracy theories, but the last time Hariri met in Europe with someone relevant from the other camp, that someone became his presidential candidate.

The bomb. The political bomb.

To make things worse for the FPM, Nasrallah said the following sentence in his speech on the 21st of March:

العماد عون يمتلك الحيثيات لمنصب الرئاسة وحين ندعمه لا يعني ذلك أننا نرفض مرشحاً اخر

Yes, it’s in a huge font, and in Arabic, because it’s extremely important: While Hezbollah was still sticking with Aoun, Nasrallah has now clearly indicated that they were open to other possibilities (the literal translation: “General Aoun holds all aspects that entitle him to become president, but supporting him does not mean that we do not approve of another candidate”). In other words, Nasrallah was giving a very, very, very subtle OK to Berri’s earlier call (on the 19th of March) to Hezbollah to endorse someone other than Aoun, *coughs* like Frangieh *coughs*, and was probably starting a slow but steady shift from the Aoun bid to the Frangieh one, while also blaming Aoun for the deadlock (since Hezbollah is “open to another candidate”). Nasrallah also criticized the LF for criticizing them that they’re not supporting Aoun enough. It’s too early to tell, but that sentence in the huge font does look very promising to Frangieh.

Berri’s immediate response? On the 22nd of March, he said that “the presidential fruit had ripened” (whatever that beautiful piece of poetry means). So yeah, the FPM had the right to panic. There was a pattern, everyone saw it, and the media was ignoring it (and suddenly focusing on the illegal internet crisis – not that they shouldn’t have focused, but the timing is weird): Those were the typical characteristics of a deal being prepared between Lebanese politicians.

How the FPM responded: The T word

The FPM decided to take the matter in their own hands, and just like any other smart Lebanese party with more than ten years of experience in Lebanese politics, they simply changed the subject: Out of nowhere, a debate on the naturalization of Syrian refugees started, and fear of “tawteen” calls began once again. And don’t get me wrong, I’m only questioning the timing here. There was nothing before March, and suddenly, we get overwhelmed with the anti-naturalization calls: See here, here, here, here, here. Whether they had planned this together or not, the three anti-Frangieh Christian parties (Kataeb, FPM, LF) made a joint effort to say the T words as many times as possible this month. Bassil even refused to meet Ban Ki Moon because of the whole naturalization debate, and the FPM (as well as the other two parties) was once again using the sectarian card, by focusing on the naturalization of Syrian refugees: Once a Christian party says the word “tawteen“, you’ll have to wait at least one or two month before you endorse someone (like Frangieh) who is vetoed by the biggest three Christian parties, or else you create panic and kill the candidacy of Sleiman Frangieh by giving the impression that you’re going against the Christian sentiment at a time when the naturalization seems imminent.

It’s either that, or there was indeed an intention to naturalize Syrian refugees, but I’ll go with the former theory for now, because of (1) the timing of the calls and (2) the fact that Lebanese politicians are the lords of political maneuvers.

So yeah, you can say that the Christian parties have gained experience, and managed to halt speaker Berri’s political maneuver of promoting Frangieh’s candidacy in the March 8 camp. But then again, who hasn’t gained experience?

680 days since the 25th of May (presidential vacancy). 516 days since the 5th of November (parliamentary extension).