Palestinian vies for imaginary seat in Lebanon parliament
beirut — She has been criss-crossing her native Lebanon ahead of May 6 elections but the parliament seat she wants does not exist and she is not even eligible. Manal Kortam is a Palestinian refugee.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have lived in refugee camps across the small Middle Eastern country for decades, facing tough living conditions and barred from certain jobs.
But in a country of just four million where each religious community is allocated seats in the legislative chamber, there are none for Palestinians.
In the run-up to Lebanon’s first parliamentary polls in almost a decade, Kortam saw an opportunity to stand up for her Palestinian community by launching a symbolic campaign. “Somebody needed to say: ‘There are people who have been in this country for 70 years but who have no place at all in public politics’,” she told AFP during a visit this week to the Mar Elias camp in Beirut.
“All candidates have programmes that speak of social justice and democracy,” she said, dressed in a slick pair of chequered trousers and black jacket, a piercing in her eyebrow.
“Implementing social justice is very important — but not just for nationals, for all Lebanon residents,” the 40-year-old from the northern city of Tripoli said.
Palestinians began taking refuge in Lebanon with the creation of Israel in 1948, setting up camps that have since transformed into bustling, urban districts. Around 174,000 Palestinian refugees live in 12 camps across the country, a one-off government census said last year.
That figure was much lower than previous estimates of up to 500,000, in a country where demographics have long been a sensitive subject.
The presence of Palestinians has been controversial, with many blaming them for the eruption of Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war. “We exist,” Kortam has often repeated as a hashtag on social media and slogan on her tours of Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps.
On Facebook, she poses in a series of posters that subvert the slogans of well-known political parties to draw attention to the Palestinian cause. “The pulse of the isolated people,” goes one, adding an adjective to a slogan of the Kataeb (Phalange) party.
Palestinians in Lebanon face a raft of restrictions from the state.
They are banned from practising a number of professions — including those of doctor, lawyer and engineer — and cannot buy a home outside the camps.
Kortam was born in Lebanon to a Palestinian father and Lebanese mother. —