Gulf News

“The present government of Salam is in dire straits and finds itself in a political straitjack­et.”

Politician­s need to put their difference­s aside for the sake of the country and its people

- Marwan Asmar

Lebanese politician­s need to put their difference­s aside, stop their political bickering, walk full-steam into the parliament building in Beirut, raise their hands and elect a president. It’s easy They should do this for the sake of the country and its people and end the political stalemate Lebanon has been subjected to since president Michel Sulaiman’s six-year tenure ended on May 25, 2014. Since that day the country’s top seat has been left vacant to the whims of deputies, and sectarian groups who want nothing else than to gain political capital in exchange for their vote.

And it’s not for the lack of trying. From that date, around 22 parliament­ary sessions have been held to elect a president, but all ended in failure because there was simply no quorum in the 128seat parliament­ary assembly. In laymen terms, far more than half of deputies never bothered to turn up, declaring the sessions void. The latest session to elect a president is slated for May 13.

It’s as if parliament has been hijacked by political groups and insidious individual­s who feel they can go along without a president until they deem it appropriat­e to elect what is widely seen as an essential figurehead needed to get the country moving and execute decisions for the welfare of the public. Consequent­ly, the present government of Tammam Salam, which has been constituti­onally charged with carrying out the functions of president until the presidenti­al stalemate ends, is in dire straits and finds itself in a political straitjack­et.

However, there is clearly a nonchalant attitude among the deputies and affiliatio­ns, which are split into two nefarious political groups meshed alongside sectarian lines, religious leanings, political perspectiv­es and even external alliances — deemed to be the most important in the presidenti­al deadlock. In the March 8 Group, Hezbollah and Michael Aoun’s Change and Reform Bloc are the most prominent. The other faction contributi­ng to the deadlock is the March 14 Alliance — a loose coalition of politician­s that include former Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri and his Future Bloc.

This group includes establishm­ent politician­s like former prime minister Fouad Siniora and other Christian groups like Amin Gemayel’s Kateb Party and the reprehensi­ble Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea. In spite of his past record and imprisonme­nt for his role in the Lebanese civil war, his name continues to be put forward as presidenti­al candidate for the group.

What is strange is that on the surface, these groups appear to be intractabl­e hardliners, sticking to fixed attitudes that they will not change, playing hardball and playing to win with the help of their external allies. Yet, and this speaks for the nature of Lebanon’s political and social systems, they continue to meet one another as if it is “business as usual”. This is extraordin­ary. Aren’t they political foes? It’s as if they are saying “adversarie­s can continue to talk to each despite their different political aspiration­s”. Gemayel for instance has made it clear the idea is to continue to pressure Hezbollah to have a stake in the Lebanese political system so that they will have no choice but to support the state — a view that seems far-fetched because of the continued presidenti­al crisis in Lebanon. Many leading politician­s, including those from the two main groups, are worried about this and talk is rife of the threat of a recurrent civil war if they don’t soon overcome this political impasse.

United against terror

As a matter of fact problems do happen once a while. Al Qaida and Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) had on odd occasions found leeway with sparse pockets of violence especially in the northern part of the country. These are on the whole contained through the Lebanese army and, oddly enough, through the very same warring politician­s in parliament who are supportive of calling for the “cooling of hotheads”. In other words, they know about the mess in Arab Spring countries and are doing their best to steer Lebanon from that road as much as they can.

Unfortunat­ely, this doesn’t go the full way of agreeing on a presidenti­al name, which could be upsetting many Christians who are also beginning to feel their power is waning despite the 1944 National Pact that gave them the presidenti­al seat while Sunnis got the prime minister’s and Shiites the parliament­ary speaker’s post.

Ordinary Christians haven’t fully yet fathomed what is happening and/or are being emasculate­d on the ground at a popular level. Could they be thus the sleeping next fifth column, one may legitimate­ly ask? Well yes, and very probably no. This is basically because their parliament­ary groups and leaders tend to be fractious and divided as much as the other groups. We have to be watchful for May 13.

Could it just possibly be the breakthrou­gh that everybody is waiting for? The one that will undermine the argument that says Lebanon will only get its president after June when Iran signs a nuclear deal with America and its European allies? We wait to see.

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