LEBANON ELECTION A REGIONAL AFFAIR

World Politics Review
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June 4 2009

Tina Wolfe | Bio | 04 Jun 2009
World Politics Review

BEIRUT, Lebanon — A polarized Lebanese electorate goes to the polls
this Sunday in a hotly contested general election that will determine
Lebanon’s cabinet and government for the next four years. It is a
high-stakes race, with more than 15 political parties and over 700
candidates jockeying for power. As always in this country of roughly
four million citizens, the internal faultlines have become a proxy
to geopolitical interests and regional turf battles.

The multitude of parties could easily be misconstrued as the genuine
sign of democracy and freedom of speech, often lacking in the
Middle East. But to a great degree, party allegiance responds not to
substantive political platforms, but rather to sectarian preferences.

In north Bekaa, south Lebanon and south Beirut, Hezbollah and Amal,
the leading Shiite parties, dominate. In the upscale neighborhoods of
downtown and West Beirut, and the northern city of Tripoli, banners
of the Future Movement mark Sunni strongholds.

But it’s in the primarily Christian areas where, according to most
analysts, the outcome of this fiercely contested election will be
determined.

The Key Players

The two informal competing blocs contesting the election are the"March
14" and "March 8" coalitions, both named for the respective dates of
mass rallies that took place in 2005. The March 14 list — currently
the ruling coalition and supported by the U.S., Europe and Saudi
Arabia — includes Sunni, Druze and Christian parties. It is led by
Sunni leader Saad Hariri, the billionaire son of slain former Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri, whose Future Movement forms the dominant bloc
in the actual cabinet.

The March 8 — or "change and reform" — bloc is primarily comprised
of Hezbollah, the powerful Iranian and Syrian-backed political and
military group, the Amal Party, and the secular Free Patriotic Movement
(FPM) of Gen. Michel Aoun. Aoun is a Maronite Christian who galvanizes
support from among his own and other Christian constituencies,
including the Armenian Tashnaks and the Franjie Marada movement.

Parliamentary Configuration

Lebanon’s sectarian-based power-sharing system makes understanding
the dynamics behind the legislative voting process a complex endeavor.

The parliament, consisting of 128 seats, is equally divided between
Christians and Muslims. The seats are further subdivided into the
nation’s 11 confessional groups. Among the principle constituencies,
Armenians are allotted 6 seats, Druze 8, Maronites 34 seats, Orthodox
14, Shiites 27 and Sunnis 27.

At present, the ruling majority controls 70 seats and the opposition
has 58. The vast majority of Sunni and Shiite candidates are
split along sectarian lines between the March 14 and March 8 camps
respectively, and seats are unlikely to switch hands between the two
factions, at least not significantly enough to tip the legislative
balance. The Sunni Future Movement aims to hold onto its current
share of 35 seats, while Hezbollah is running for 11 spots.

According to most analysts, the Christian-dominated districts hold
the key to determining the outcome of the election, as they are the
only sectarian community not unified behind a single political party.

Among Christian candidates, Michel Aoun won the majority of the
Christian vote in the 2005 election, and the following year struck
an alliance with Hezbollah, effectively aligning his party with the
pro-Syrian March 8 opposition. Other Christian factions, such as the
Lebanese Forces and the Phalanges, are faithful to the pro-Western
and pro-Saudi March 14. The Druze vote is split between parties in
both coalitions, but their numbers are not as sizeable as in the
Christian community.

For months now, most analysts have predicted a marginal win for the
March 8 opposition bloc, representing a setback for Western hopes of
containing Syrian and Iranian influence in the country. Many observers
also fear that a victory for the Hezbollah-led bloc could jeopardize
future investments in the country.

The election plays out amidst recent efforts by U.S. President Obama
to re-engage with Syria and diminish tensions with Iran, efforts
that have been met with some concern by the pro-Western March 14
government. Recent visits by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
and Vice President Joe Biden to Beirut were meant in part to reassure
Washington’s March 14 allies, but also to caution the Syrians against
meddling in Lebanon’s election. Biden also used his visit to signal
that U.S. policy in terms of humanitarian, economic and military aid
may shift in the event of a ruling coalition that includes Hezbollah.

The barely veiled threat, however, only served to embolden opposition
supporters, who regard any visit by a top-ranking U.S. official as
election meddling in favor of the March 14 alliance.

Regardless of which bloc emerges victorious, it will be by a
slim margin at best. So the true test for Lebanon will remain the
post-election process, when the new Lebanese parliament will have to
choose a new prime minister, form a new cabinet and decide whether the
minority retains veto power in the parliament. In the past, these kinds
of maneuverings have led to political deadlock, violence and bloodshed.

In a recent article, Rami Khoury, director of the Issam Fares
Institute at the American University of Beirut and editor-at-large
of the Beirut-based Daily Star stated that the election, by revealing
the two camps’ nearly equally matched strengths, "will reinforce the
need for negotiated co-existence and power-sharing."

Hezbollah has promised a "unity government" should the March 8
coalition triumph, an arrangement that March 14 claims it will
boycott. So although both blocs have vowed to maintain a spirit of
cooperation and peace after the voting, there is no guarantee that
Lebanon’s violent history will not repeat itself.

Tina Wolfe is a freelance journalist currently based in Beirut.