Mediterranean Nation is in a Mess

  By Henry Srebrnik, [Sydney, N.S.] Cape Breton Post

Lebanon is in a mess.

But what else is new? There is no sense of national identity. The various religious communities — the Maronites, Druze, Shiites, Sunnis, and many others — claim their share of the politico-economic spoils.

From parliamentary seats down to administrative posts, the confessionalism that is the essence of the state requires their allocation by religious affiliation. In the meantime, public administration deteriorates, infrastructure rots, and inflation rockets.

STRING OF CRISES

The Lebanese people decided to challenge this status quo on Oct. 17, 2019, when people from all sects and regions took to the streets to say no to corruption, the political system, and for the first time, to the Shi’ite militia Hezbollah and its patron, Iran. But little changed.

The past few years have been dominated by a string of political and economic crises in Lebanon that were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic; the 2020 Beirut port blast which killed 216 people, injured 6,000 and shattered the homes of some 300,000 more; and a shortage of grains because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The World Bank reclassified Lebanon from an uppermiddle-income country to lower-middle-income last July. Many vital public institutions, including universities, service ministries and municipalities, are barely functioning. The financial crisis has led to an incredible 97 per cent loss of value in the Lebanese currency.

“A person that is earning 1,500,000 Lebanese pounds used to have an equivalent of $1,000 before the crisis, and now it is equivalent to less than $200,” according to Hussein Cheaito, a development economist at the Policy Initiative, a Beirut-based research centre. Those who have money in savings accounts are prohibited from withdrawing most of their funds from the banks. Stories abound of armed efforts to retrieve a depositor’s own savings.

IMPOSSIBLE REFORMS

Lebanon has seen prices soar for basic goods that has left three-fourths of the population in poverty. Some consumer items and especially many vital medical supplies are simply not available. October saw a cholera outbreak due to contaminated water, and those who can afford it drink bottled water — although it now costs eight times more than it did in 2019.

The World Bank has conditionally approved financial assistance of $3 billion upon the implementation of structural and financial reforms. But these reforms have been

impossible to implement in this political environment.

At the end of October, President Michel Aoun left office at the end of his six-year term without a successor, so the country has no head of state at the moment. It is currently ruled by a transitional government under caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, with limited power. (The country’s constitution requires the president, elected by parliament, to be a Maronite Christian. The prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim.)

Aoun warned that weeks of “constitutional chaos” lay ahead for the country, and he’s been proven right. Lawmakers have tried and failed to elect a new president. Aoun’s opponents have blamed him and his allies, the Iran-backed Shi’ite Hezbollah movement, for the impasse.

DIVIDED OPPOSITION

Hezbollah is now trying to promote Suleiman Frangieh, who is closely affiliated with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, as a candidate on its behalf, but the parliamentary camp that supports Hezbollah (the so-called March 8 Alliance), lacks the majority needed. They have only 60 members of parliament, but a two-thirds majority — 86 out of 128 MPs — are needed to choose a president in the first round of voting, followed by a 65-member simple majority in the second round.

But the opposition is highly divided. It includes two central blocs: the remnants of the March 14 Alliance, which opposes Hezbollah and the legacy of Aoun; and the so-called Change Bloc, which includes fragments of independent parties that are not affiliated with traditional camps.

The leading candidate so far has been Michel Moawad, son of former president René Moawad, who is affiliated with the bloc that opposes Hezbollah. But in the eleventh round of balloting held recently, Moawad received the support of only 34 members of parliament, all Hezbollah opponents. Another 37 MPs cast blank ballots and several others used their papers to make a protest.

In any event, Hezbollah can recruit a veto bloc of one-third of the MPs and it is doubtful whether the divided opposition will manage to reach a consensus and achieve the election of a candidate who will challenge that organization. Hezbollah’s goal today is to maintain their control by imposing their choice for the next president and their vision for the next government.

These disputes are likely to see the continued paralysis of the Lebanese political system for a long time. While no one seems ready to declare it a failed state, its government institutions are broken and non-functional.