Dance Lebanon, dance!

In early May 2008, Hezbollah deployed militarily in Beirut and forced the pro-Western March 14 group led by Sa'ad Hariri to reverse its attempt to dismantle Hezbollah's telecommunications network. Despite tremendous controversy, Hezbollah's show of arms led to the end of the 18-month political crisis in Lebanon when factions finally agreed to negotiate in Doha, Qatar, at the end of May 2008. The ensuing Doha Agreement nominated a new president, General Michel Sulaiman, and brought about a national unity government consisting of March 14 and the Hezbollah-led "opposition".

Also emerging from Doha was a reformed electoral law, which distributes the 128 seats of the Lebanese parliament according to geographic areas and increases the number of electoral districts from 13 in 2005 to 26. Christian-dominated Mount Lebanon has the most, with 34 seats. However, Shiite-dominated and Hezbollah-controlled South Lebanon and Bekaa Valley have 23 each, and added to the votes for the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) led by Christian General Michel Aoun, the balance will be further tipped in favour of the Hezbollah-FPM opposition.

The Doha Agreement also proposed lowering the official voting age from 21 to 18, but this will not go into effect for these elections because a constitutional amendment is needed to pass the new legislation. The electoral status of out-of-country Lebanese was adopted but Chapter 10 of the electoral law was not implemented due to lack of time to prepare voting ballots in embassies and consulates. Once resolved for the next elections, Lebanese living abroad will have the chance to contribute to the nation-building exercise of elections, similar to the untapped potential of the Palestinian diaspora.

So what are the prospects of the Lebanese elections bringing about serious change? The status quo will remain. If no car bombs go off, that will be considered a success in itself.

Despite the influx of foreign electoral observers prior to the elections, there seems to be little political rallying, besides the usual ranting. FPM has adopted an electoral slogan similar to that used by Hamas leading up to the watershed January 2006 elections ('Change and Reform'), while Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah chose recently to talk about the great victory last May when Hezbollah showed Hariri and company who was really boss.

Hezbollah also has the 'divine victory' card to play after not having been defeated by the mighty Israeli military in the summer of 2006. And if that weren't enough, it also has the armed resistance card to play for having pushed Israel and its Lebanese proxies out of South Lebanon in May 2000. These June 2009 elections will not dislodge Hezbollah, whether one is sympathetic to their cause or not.

Similarly, Palestinian elections will not change the fact that Hamas controls Gaza after taking over the Strip military in July 2007. Hezbollah has played the democratic game for longer, partaking politically in the Lebanese parliament since the early 1990s. But like Hamas, democratic elections now ring rather hollow, particularly when international electoral missions do not stand by what they observe on the ground: the European reversal of endorsing and then opposing the election of Hamas is the most flagrant example. We can only hope that the European Union respects the results of these Lebanese elections.

In Lebanon, US Vice President Joseph Biden marked a more direct intervention in Arab elections when he stated that American aid would depend on the outcome of the elections and on the "policies of the new government". Democracy should not be promoted conditionally. Why should either Hamas or Hezbollah get excited about national elections when they are punished for winning and when aid is only offered to other parties?

But democracy is not all about elections. Lebanon may be forging a new path in the Middle East with the creation and consolidation of a government of national unity. The Palestinians are also painfully working in that direction, without the complex confessional clauses inherent in the Lebanese system, but with US conditionality on the composition of the national unity government. Despite US, Iranian and Saudi influence in Lebanon, cooperation between the Lebanese factions may demonstrate a revived national will to work together after many years of civil strife. Elections could then simply be seen as a good excuse to show off and do a little dance.

Europeans and other international observers are welcome to participate in the dance with their hefty salaries. If nothing else, it will jumpstart the summer tourist season. It may not be a complete coincidence that Lebanon's elections take place the same day elections are due in Belgium, which also endured a long absence of government last year. Let's hope the Lebanese elections go as quietly as in Belgium - no explosives please! Boring? That's part of democracy. There are always the presidential elections in Iran and Afghanistan coming up this summer&

Stuart Reigeluth is a Middle East specialist based in Madrid.