Lebanon Has No President, No Gov’t, as Parties SquabbleOver Candidates
Meanwhile, winter approaches amid an energy crisis that mayworsen
Lebanese President Michel Aoun concludes his six-yearpresidential term on Monday, leaving no successor to replacehim. This follows his announcement on Sunday that he hadaccepted the resignation of the current caretaker government ledby Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who failed to form agovernment after the elections in May of this year.
In Lebanon, the president is traditionally chosen by gaining atleast a two-thirds majority of the parliament’s 128 members.According to an agreement called the National Pact, settled justbefore the country’s independence from the French in 1943, thepresident must always be a Maronite Christian, the primeminister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of parliament a ShiiteMuslim.
Marwan Abdallah, the international secretary of the KataebParty, one of the country’s Christian political parties, told TheMedia Line that, although the president must be a MaroniteChristian, there are different Christian parties, which havedifferent candidates, and the parliament has not agreed on one ofthem yet.
The problem, he says, is not that Sunnis and Shiites must votefor a Maronite Christian. “This has been the case for the past 80years – there are political alliances between different parties,” hesaid.
The question is: Which Maronite is going to be the president?And, most relevant for gaining the support of parliamentarians: What political affiliation will the new president have?
“Would he be more likely to support Hizbullah and the Iranians,or will the president be leaning toward the Gulf countries andthe West? Would he be willing to put all the big problems on thetable or just postpone the problems for the next six years?” asked Abdallah.
Mohamad Radwan Al Omar, president of the LebaneseAssembly for Inclusive Development and representative adviserof Lebanon on MediateGuru’s Global Advisory Board,explained that the Lebanese parliament is divided into twocamps: one led by Hizbullah and backed by Iran and Russia, andthe other one closer to the West and to the Sunni regionalpowers, to which the Sunni parties belong.
Al Omar told The Media Line that attempts earlier this month toselect a new president failed because the camp led by Hizbullah,gripped by an internal dispute, failed to agree on a candidate.
On the other hand, he added, the Western coalition, togetherwith the independent parliamentarians, backed Michel Moawadtwice without success. “It is now up to this alliance to fix theirinternal disagreements in order to elect a new president,” heconcluded.
Jamal Wakim, a professor of history and international relations at the Lebanese University in Beirut, told The Media Line that the parliament has not chosen a president because there are too many contenders. “Though no one is able to be backed by a majority, no one wants to step down,” he said. That is why he believes it will take at least a year for the parliament to choose a new president.
Abdallah points out that this situation leaves Lebanon with acaretaker government that cannot legally convene and makedecisions, and with no president either. “If you don’t have thegovernment and you don’t have a president, how would yougovern the country?” he asked.
However, Wakim says this is not a rare situation for theLebanese. “We are used to having vacuums in power, andpeople care more about their [daily] living.”
This vacuum finds Lebanon amid economic, financial, andpolitical crises, Abdallah notes, adding that, with the wintercoming and the current energy crisis, the situation will mostlikely worsen.
“You have only one or two hours of [energy] supply per day, which is nothing. With all these problems, I’m not sure how we will survive,” he said. “We used to hope for 24 hours of electricity per day; now I’m hoping for eight hours. We used to hope to live a life and have good businesses; now we hope to get our own money out of the bank,” he said.
The stresses of day-to-day living take people’s minds offpolitics. “The standards are going down, and I think that nownobody cares if there’s a president or not, if there’s a government or not, as long as they can have their daily life dealtwith, especially with bread and gas and the basic stuff that isnow very hard to find,” Abdallah said.
Al Omar believes that the caretaker government will try as muchas possible to fill the current political vacuum, but he notes thatit is not authorized to take the major, important decisions thatthe Lebanese people desperately need now to overcome thecurrent crisis.