Lebanese Political Journal

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Adaptation is an interesting thing.

I always complain about the noise in Beirut: piercing sirens, constant honking, brakes screeching, music blaring day and night. However, when it is quiet, particularly when I can hear crickets chirping, I feel like something is wrong.

Often, silence is associated with a tragedy that could bring internal strife - better to be silent when there is no protocol for how to behave.

After I evacuated from the war - after the war ended for all of those who did not leave, not hearing the rumbling of warplanes and the explosions of their payloads hitting their targets was unsettling.

The political sphere in Lebanon is comparatively quiet. The pubs in Monnot and Gemmayze are packed, and foreigners roam the streets. There are fewer checkpoints than there were two weeks ago. However, we all know something is going to boil up from below. Beirut is silent by 2:30am - rare in a 24hour city.

We hope to soon be burdened with normality. But who knows what will come?

In an article about Saad Hariri’s trip to the US (where Walid Jumblatt is as I write this) Lee Smith and Barry Rubin highlight strategies Lebanese can take to promote Lebanon’s interests:

A more significant problem, explained Rubin, who is a former congressional staffer, is that Lebanon has not done a great job making the case that it is an important US ally. “For whatever reason, Lebanon has not gotten word out and mobilized supporters,” said Rubin. “The Syrians, on the other hand, are handling their PR brilliantly. Look at all these people you have talking about engaging Syria. But you just don’t hear about Lebanon as an option. Therefore, people are tempted to say, ‘why don’t we engage with the Syrians?’ People say that the Syrians can help in Iraq, and that the Syrians can contribute on the Israeli front. Lebanon can’t offer anything on Iraq. So what can Lebanon do for the US and US interests? That case hasn’t been made. It does not appear as an independent variable.”

Rubin, like many friends of Lebanon around Washington, thinks it’s not enough to have visiting officials come to town from time to time to make their case, speak to officials and get the attention of a few prominent columnists. “If I were Lebanese, or Lebanese-American, I sure know what I would do. I’d write a manifesto on why the US should support Lebanon, put together a blue-ribbon panel to endorse it and launch a massive media campaign.”

Phalange MP Antoine Ghanem was assassinated today in Sin el Fil, just days before Parliament is set to elect a new Lebanese president.

The Syrians and their proxies have spoken: they will accept no president they do not appoint.

Should Phalange leader Amin Gemayel be elected president, he will suffer the same fate as his assassinated colleague, as his assassinated brother, and as Lebanese President Rene Muawad, who was assassinated shortly after his election in 1989.

The pro-Syrian opposition claims that it wants a consensus president, but simultaneously it continues to present Michel Aoun as their candidate, someone the majority will not accept (ie, not a consensus candidate).

It is Michel Aoun’s turn to speak out and contend that he does not want to be elected president by a crippled parliament. He should stand up for his assassinated colleagues. Obviously, he won’t, and hopefully, he will feel the heavy hand of the US Treasury Department.

Syria and its cronies will not allow freedom in Lebanon.

“It’s dawning on a number of groups in the majority that the Hariri camp may be the strongest yet also the most vulnerable component in the March 14 coalition.” That’s the understatement of the last few years.

Michael Young worries about the Hariri’s in recent opinion piece. We bloggers have worried about them for quite a lot longer. I wrote an excessively persnickety open letter to Saad Hariri at the beginning of June when it looked like he was selling out the rest of his coalition and undermining the prime minister. Walid Eido’s assassination, which coincidentally enough came the day after I wrote the letter, reoriented the Hariri camp, but did not cause drastic change to their behavior.

Young hits the nail on the head arguing:

spending several weeks out of the country at so sensitive a moment, much of that time at the opulent Hotel de Paris in Monaco, is foolish politics. Soldiers are still being killed in Nahr al-Bared, many of their families stalwarts of Hariri support in the Akkar; conditions in the country are uncertain, with people growing increasingly exasperated with basic tribulations such as power outages; and Lebanon’s liberal future is being decided at this very moment, with Hariri and his parliamentary retinue nowhere to be seen. You don’t build a durable political movement on poorly-timed absences.

Why fight and die for a political movement that doesn’t stand by you?

The symbiosis between the Hariri movement and state institutions, a cornerstone of Rafik Hariri’s power, is today lacking…. The Hariri strategy always transcended patron-client relationships to encompass a national vision (albeit a flawed one at times), but Saad Hariri doesn’t seem to be offering fresh ideas about how the state should develop. Most Sunnis support him, but without a long-term plan to consolidate that support by anchoring it in the state, the Hariris will lose ground to others.

The country needs leadership, and the leader of the largest faction of the parliamentary majority should guide the country in its time of turmoil.

The country faces dramatic changes and realignments in the next few months, and the Future Movement should be pushing change forward rather than responding to events. Saad needs to prove that he can prevent the need for new tribunals, not just celebrate the one that may or may not take place.

Watching the US Presidential debates, I’d be rather comfortable if I was president of Syria or Iran.

The Democrats seem to want to empower the Syrian and Iranian regimes, while the Republicans seem to desire an even larger war.

Obama, Hillary, and Biden seem to be the serious and intelligent Democratic candidates. Kucinich is a useful counterpoint to the big three. Mike Gravel is absolutely insane and harmful to the world, while Richardson, Dodd, and Edwards don’t seem to have what it takes to lead a powerful nation.

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the Republican debates (blame MBC4), but the clips I’ve seen haven’t given me confidence in American abilities to make positive change in American policy in the Middle East.

Michael Young’s opinion piece this week about the upcoming Lebanese presidential elections is excellent. He has a fuller grasp on the subject than anyone else I can think of (and has probably woven together ideas spawned in conversations with the best of sources on the M14 side: Walid Jumblatt, Marwan Hamade, and well-connected journalists/analysts).

Young argues that the parliamentary majority use its clout to mitigate the damage of a Syrian appointed candidate, or work with Michel Aoun to elect a candidate of their choosing without alienating the Syrians. Regardless, according to Young, the parliamentary majority is in a good negotiating position that should lead to a positive outcome.

However, I have one question. Young claims, “Fouad Siniora be reappointed as prime minister, but only if he proves he is not Suleiman’s man as some are beginning to fear.” I haven’t heard the rumors about Siniora being “Suleiman’s man.” Could anyone further elucidate this point?

Blogger Charles Levinson reveals Hezbollah’s activities in north of the Litani. Read it all:

I got a few hundred yards down that dirt track before I was stopped by a chain connecting a pair of cement blocks and a sign that read “Entry forbidden – Hezbollah area.” Two bearded teenagers, armed with walkie talkies and AK47s appeared out of a foxhole of some sort and ran up to us.

…

All these [Christian and Druze] villages are poor, in a state of general decline, and were thus unable to resist when a wealthy Shiite businessman named Ali Tajeddine offered to buy their land for two and four times its estimated value. Tajeddine is originally from the village of Hanaouay outside Tyre. He made his money trading diamonds in Sierra Leone before moving back to Lebanon and starting a successful contracting business. It’s said he’s funded by Iran and he’s widely believed to have strong ties to Hezbollah.

…

Most curiously perhaps, the by far most ambitious road project I witnessed anywhere in Lebanon was in this area in and around Rihan, even though this area was scarcely bombed during last summer’s war. It’s a massive at least four lane wide asphalt autostrade stretching from the Hezbollah stronghold of Nabbatiye north east into the Western Bekaa.

Also, Hezbollah arrested journalist Nicholas Blanford and his translator and turned them over to the Lebanese Army.

By tomorrow, we will know the results of the Lebanese parliamentary by-elections. Regardless of the outcome, it is useful to know the policy positions and campaign operations of the opposition.

Journalist Taylor Long interviewed Beirut opposition candidate Ibrahim Halabi for the Lebanese Political Journal about why Halabi is running, and the inner workings of his campaign. Given the immense amount of coverage of the Metn by-elections compared to the dearth of coverage of the Beirut elections, this article presents a unique glimpse into opposition operations. This is what he found out.

Prepared to fight against all odds

Ibrahim Halabi explains what his fight is all about
Taylor Long

They call themselves Harakat as-Sha’ab or The People’s Movement. And while they know that they will always be the political underdog in Lebanon, that hasn’t stopped them from participating in most every parliamentary election that has taken place over the last eleven years. Now, even in an off year – this time for by-elections in Beirut – Najah Wakim, Ibrahim Halabi and their small but loyal group of supporters have stepped up to give Future candidate Muhammad Amin Itani a run for his money.

While party founder and former MP Wakim is usually the public face of the Left-leaning and opposition aligned party, he has temporarily been replaced in the spotlight by Halabi, the party’s Sunni parliamentary candidate whose face pedestrians and motorists might have seen over the past few days plastered on walls across the city.

To say that Itani is the favored candidate in this election would be a gross understatement. There is little doubt that Itani, largely perceived to be the natural successor to assassinated Future MP Walid Eido, will garner at least 90 percent of the vote this Sunday. That, however, doesn’t mean that his opponent should necessarily be overlooked. Halabi knows that his chances are slim, but he pointed out that this doesn’t mean that he and his party don’t have a message to share.

Halabi said that Harakat as-Sha’ab had taken a very early decision to contest Beirut by-elections no matter what because they wanted to remind the city that the only way to achieve positive change is through the democratic process, through fair elections and strategic lobbying. “The time for military coups is long since over,” said Halabi, explaining in a roundabout way how his party represents the next generation of Lebanese politics. Not only should military coups and one-party elections be long over, he argued, but so should corruption, sectarianism and the uncontested reign of political families like the Hariris or the Gemayels.

He didn’t mince words about being in direct opposition to the government and what he called its March 14 allies: “We regard this government as corrupt and wasteful,” he said, “This government is pushing the country toward instability and maybe even toward war.” According to Harakat as-Sha’ab, even though the party welcomes the upcoming elections as a democratic battle with the potential to bring about change, it felt that it would have been wiser on the government’s part not to hold elections at this time. The party agrees with two of its allies, the Free Patriotic Movement and Hezbollah, that these by-elections are illegal and fears that voting now might set a dangerous precedent for upcoming presidential elections.

This unilateral call for by-elections, the party says, might encourage the majority to unilaterally elect a new president in September. “In any other country anywhere in the world,” Halabi explained, “no government would have the audacity to take up presidential elections all on its own, so why is our government trying to take this decision all on its own. By insisting on minor elections [the by-elections], all they’ve done is introduce a new crisis.”

Halabi said that these elections were not really about representing a constituency, but were really more about maintaining or challenging the current balance of power in the legislature. The elections, he said, especially in the Metn, are about polling popularity and proving who the Christians really support. “If this were taking place under normal circumstances,” he explained, “then we would be talking about popular needs – paving road, etc. But, these are not normal circumstances and so politics come before anything else.”

This, he said, was why he and his party have not advanced a detailed social platform as they did two years ago in the 2005 parliamentary elections. A lot has changed on the Lebanese political scene in the last two years, much of it for the worse, and it is unfortunate that the wholesale sacrifice of a political platform by most every party involved in elections has been one of these changes. Even Harakat as-Sha’ab, one of the least sectarian parties in the Lebanon and a group with a radical social vision for the country, is going into this election with no real plan for Beirut – the district that both Itani and Halabi are purportedly running to represent.

Halabi, however, insisted that he was in fact running on a platform of sorts. It’s just that his platform was more about the general texture of Lebanese politics than it was about neighborhood details. He described this platform in terms of how it was different from the positions that Itani and the Future Movement have taken over the last two years.

The question of foreign influence, he said, was one point over which he and his opponent differed: “The government and its March 14 allies are influenced by external parties, but we are against any foreign influence. We want people to be able to live in dignity and find their own places in society.”

But, while Halabi may believe this, he’s going to have a difficult time convincing voters of the depth of this conviction standing next to a controversial politician like Wakim. Wakim, many Beirutis believe, maintained uncomfortably close ties with Syrian intelligence until 2005 when the army withdrew. This, his detractors say, was only underscored by an interview on Syrian TV where he called Syria his “second country.”

But Harakat as-Sha’ab, Halabi insisted, was running on its own credentials. He wanted to stress how his campaign reflected the party’s populist message. The party relies heavily on volunteers because of its limited budget but also because a strong volunteer and youth presence in their offices represent the genuine and willing support of a segment of the Beirut population that is eager to “challenge stereotypes.”

The Future Movement, on the other hand, he accused, had used its generous resources to buy votes before and might be doing so again. “These bribes are two-faced,” he said, “First, they are direct – to key figures like a religious leader or a neighborhood leader, paying them… say $100,000 to get people to vote for them. Secondly, they are indirect – like when they distribute goods to the poor.”

Itani’s office, when contacted, said that it had no comment on any allegations that Halabi might have made. But in the party’s defense, there isn’t much evidence that Itani might be bribing officials.

Everyone knows that elections in Lebanon are no friendly thing. That’s one reason why they’re usually called “battles” and not “races” in Arabic. But, allegations of bribery this year in Beirut are really nothing short of spurious.

There’s hardly even any money in the race. The Beirut elections are – for all three contenders – a low budget “battle.” And for Halabi, the simple fact that Beirut by-elections are a relatively unimportant event compared to Metn by-elections means that he might actually get a more positive showing now than he did two years ago. But, then again, that just means getting more than the meager 3,700 votes he got then.

Halabi, however, has ample experience with running a low budget campaign. In fact, operating on a low budget is part of what Harakat as-Sha’ab is all about. “Money is only essential in being able to run our electoral base, just the necessities,” he explained, adding, “Yes, money is difficult, but that doesn’t mean that we are going to pull out. If we complained about not having money, then we would be hypocrites. We would be against our own agenda of change.”

Halabi believes that the party’s economic modesty reflects its promise to fight corruption. And indeed, the party’s two story offices near Jnah certainly bear witness to this conviction. Yes, the party just moved in, which might explain why some of their accommodations are so modest, but even the party leader’s desk looked like it should more appropriately belong to a public school teacher. It sat, lit by the flicker of remarkably dim fluorescent lighting, alone in large, whitewashed and undecorated room that, other than a ring of tattered couches, was remarkably barren. The conference table in the adjoining room, moreover, actually had some patio furniture deployed around it.

Harkat as-Sha’ab is anything but a rich political party, which is actually something of a relief in the current sea of Lebanese politics. With untold sums being spent on abridged but extremely critical elections in the Metn, Halabi’s election strategy is something of a breath of fresh air. And while Beirut voters might want to think twice about sending this unlikely candidate into office, they would at least do well to take a few of his criticisms to heart. The history of Lebanese elections is anything but spectacular when measured by a yardstick of any democratic or republican ideal, and while Halabi may not have all the answers, at least he’s one of Lebanon’s few politicians committed to propagating a truly healthy debate on legislative reform.

In a thorough analysis of the situation in Northern Metn today, and on top of what i had earlier advanced in the thread about Aoun’s alliance with Michel Murr and Tachnag; many clear indicators show under what umbrella Michel Aoun is pushing Camille Khoury to candidacy for the seat that was emptied by the assasination of Cheikh Pierre Amine Gemayel.

First of all, the killers of Martyr Pierre had two targets: 1- Eliminating a March 14 deputy thus reducing the Parliamentary majority of the Coalition for Lebanon; 2- Reducing the number of ministers in Fouad Siniora’s government in another attempt to ruin the first government that was formed without any consent from Damascus.That very government, and in an attempt to stop the bloodshed that has crossed all limits after the killing of MP Walid Eido, decided to abide by the constitution and invited for by-elections in the 2 districts (Beirut 2 and North Metn) within the constitutional deadlines.

The candidacy of Camille Khoury today is the best service possible for the killers of Cheikh Pierre. He is a March 8 candidate and he is running against the very family and party of Cheikh Pierre in an attempt to reduce the March 14 majority in the parliament; i.e. a clear help to the assasins in their goal.

Who are the main voters for Camille Khoury?

1- The Killers of President Cheikh Bachir Gemayel: The Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party who is openly pro-FPM in Metn.

2- The people who broke cars and shop vitrines in Jal el Dib and Zalka on the “Dark Tuesday” :The Shias of Roueissat; majorly from HAmal

3- The forces that broke laws to achieve a fake family triumph in former by-elections: Michel Murr who naturalized many Arab Bedouins from the Bekaa to add them to his electoral bloc; we all remember MTV broadcasting those sad pictures of Non-Metnis confused between “Mirna” and “Gabriel”, when Aoun’s current deputy Ghassan Moukheiber showed his real weight by barely collecting a thousand votes.

4- The Tachnag who are always allied to Michel Murr who provided them with many services under the Syrian tutelage and with the Syrian Military heavy presence in the heart of Metn in places like Dhour Choueir etc..

5- The current president Lahoud whose term was extended forcefully by Bachar el Assad

6- Some Baathists and other Pro-Syrians like Michel Samaha who forgot the times when he worked with President Amine Gemayel, and who is today banned from entering the US because of his open work with the non-state armed islamist militia of Hezbollah and because of his repetitive visits to Damascus recentlyWe should not forget that traditionally, Michel Murr and co. made sure that the Northern Metn becomes a solid pro-Syrian bloc; and they achieved a lot of that.. In 2000, only Pierre Gemayel and Nassib Lahoud could make it when the whole pro-Syrian list of Murr and allies won, few months before young pro-independance christians were harshly hit by “forces of order” that were directed by M. Murr and Syrian intelligence services next to the Justice Palace on August 7 2001.

The same pro-Syrian bloc brought the Aoun-Murr list to power in Metn in 2005, and that same bloc backs Camille Khoury today.

Khoury’s victory would not be a big surprise since Metn has always voiced the will of the Syrian regime; the Metn is not a region where the Lebanese Christian will has been exercized except with few heroes like Pierre Gemayel, Nassib Lahoud, Eddy Abillamaa or Gabriel Murr.

SSNP + Roueissat’s HAmal + Michel Murr + Emile Lahoud = Michel Aoun is putting his hands with the killers of President Bachir Gemayel (SSNP) to achieve the goals of the murderers of Pierre Gemayel. Both were Syrian goals, thus Aoun is purely pro-Syrian through his acts.

Camille Khoury’s election would be an episode in a long series: he will be brought by the same forces that drove the likes of Ghassan el Achkar, Emile Emile Lahoud, Antoine Haddad, Mirna el Murr or Michel Samaha to the Lebanese Parliament…