Ever since the 2005 Cedar Revolution that followed the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, Lebanon dawdled, pretending to provide security and stability. Fundamental differences among elites who fantasised about power prevented constitutionally elected officials from exercising their authority, most of whom were unable to focus on a clear national security agenda because — and this must be admitted without any reservations — few were accustomed to think about such matters. Consequently, and throughout the past decade, clusters of power emerged that highlighted irreconcilable perceptions.
Nowhere was this self-made paralysis more evident than at the failure to elect a president after the incumbent, Michel Sulaiman, ended his six-year term on May 24, 2014. Although the March 14 coalition fielded Samir Geagea as its contender and dispatched its deputies to parliament to participate in the election on a regular basis, the March 8 coalition, led by Hezbollah and its putative candidate, General Michel Aoun, boycotted every single session, allegedly because Aoun insisted on a pre-determined election that would ensure a landslide victory.
After 33 premature assemblies, the process remained frozen until former prime minister Sa’ad Hariri (March 14) entertained the idea of nominating the pro-Syrian Sulaiman Franjieh (March 8), ostensibly to break the impasse. The suggestion met fierce opposition, especially from Aoun, who still insisted that the presidency was his and no one else’s. Still, what was truly ironic, and beyond anyone’s comprehension, was the notion that March 8 fielded two contenders for the presidency.
Under the circumstances, and given Aoun’s relentless fortitude, Lebanon was left without a president, though what was worse was the determination by both the Free Patriotic Movement and Hezbollah to sabotage the government that, for all practical purposes, remained inactive for most of the year. Since parliament unconstitutionally renewed its own mandate on two separate occasions (on May 31, 2013, for 17 months and on November 5, 2014, for an additional 31 months), no legitimate state institution functions today. Consequently, the Lebanese bureaucracy has been enveloped in largely unproductive wrappings, with routine matters handled simply to keep the wheels of the state moving. Few pay attention to how dysfunctional the government has become.
In fact, a self-made crisis started when the Minister of Environment closed the capital’s main landfill on July 17, without proposing an alternative, even if Mohammad Machnouk had nearly a year to get ready. Eleven years after the Naameh landfill — which opened on a temporary basis in 1998 — reached its capacity in 2009 and recorded serious breaches and added to air and seawater pollution, critics have taken to the streets after garbage was left rotting across the country.
Protests mobilised thousands, starting in August, as popular resentment and anger towards the entire establishment gathered momentum, although the security apparatus in place has maintained an aura of confidence. Massive demonstrations were eventually subdued and while serious clashes with law enforcement authorities led to many arrests — as well as dozens of injured citizens — the elite genius has muzzled the visible discontent.
Where these same merchant-politicians could not rise to the occasion was in handling the huge number of refugees that crippled the country’s shaky foundations. Lebanon hosted 450,000 registered Palestinian refugees at the start of the Syrian uprisings in 2011 [a conservative figure since many births were never recorded with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA] and barely handled its 750,000 expatriate workers. The country has witnessed a sharp increase in Syrian refugees, whose numbers stood around 1.2 million, according to various UN agencies, but who, in reality, were nearer the two million figure on account of relatively porous borders between the two neighbouring states. In 2015, border tensions have increased, especially around the northern Biqa Valley city of Arsal, where extremists held Lebanese military and security officers for most of the year. Qatari intercessions secured the release of 16, although nine soldiers are still in the custody of Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). What is difficult to comprehend is the ease with which elites have overlooked the consequences of nearly three million refugees — one in four persons living in the country in 2015 — whose presence on humanitarian grounds is acceptable, but whose drain on society is catastrophic.
Most Lebanese perceive fresh dangers coming from Syria — the spillover effects of the civil war that has already cost the lives of at least 1,500 Hezbollah men fighting alongside the pro-Iranian Bashar Al Assad regime — while they hope that elites will honour the country’s disassociation policy. This is unlikely to happen anytime soon, given the preponderant position that Hezbollah has played in both countries. Indeed, the pro-Iranian party has insisted on its right to engage in various battlefronts on behalf of Lebanon, even if no consensus exists on this issue. It has argued that it is in Syria to prevent Daesh extremists from migrating to Beirut, but has failed to persuade most of the population. Hezbollah has been unsuccessful to gain some sorely-needed backing (as was the case in 2006, when it fought Israel) from privileged cession-makers who could, and would, cut a deal with it.
Remarkably, confused self-appointed trailblazers are engaged in endless dialogues that are heading nowhere, oblivious to indigenous needs. Last Monday, they gathered for the 12th time this year and shamelessly pretended to have had a “positive” session, even though nothing was agreed to, save scheduling the 13th session for January 11, 2016.
For now, most Lebanese have adapted to the state’s rapidly-fading capabilities to deliver any services, resorting instead to the private sector (duly controlled by merchant-politicians) for alternatives. In 2015, the Lebanese political class has failed to contain several unfolding governance crises, though it has excelled in sharpening existing divisions. Sadly, chances are high that the new year will closely resemble the one that is about to close.
Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is the author of Iffat Al Thunayan: An Arabian Queen, London: Sussex Academic Press, 2015.
