It is now officially one year since Lebanon last had a president. And every few weeks over the past 12 months, the members of Lebanon’s parliament have met and gone through the motions of attempting to reach a deal on electing a head of state. And each time over these past 365 days, those parliamentarians have failed to reach an agreement. If Lebanon’s parliamentarians need a reminder of the necessity in electing a president, they should bear in mind that the position has not been vacant for so long than during the nation’s protracted and bloody civil war that ended in 1990.
But these same parliamentarians should also remember that it is they who are failing the people of Lebanon; they are engaging in callous and deliberate politicking, putting their own narrow interests ahead of their country. And they are failing each and every Lebanese citizen, regardless of their ethnic or religious background.
The sad reality too is that Lebanon now is so deeply if not directly tied with the raging war in neighbouring Syria that an agreement on electing a new president is unlikely in the near future.
In 23 meetings over the past year since the end of the term of Michel Sulaiman, the deadlock has endured, with the disparate groups failing to obtain a two-thirds quorum for a presidential vote to be held. Shame on Lebanon’s parliamentarians for abrogating their national responsibilities in favour of sectarian loyalties.
