WILL THE SHAKY EQUILIBRIUM HOLD?
Economist
deast-africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13743336
Ma y 27 2009
Despite its history of turbulence and the continuing rise of the Shias,
Lebanon’s fragile peace may persist–at least for a while
WITH a general election on June 7th, Lebanese passions are running
high. Brazen posters festoon every public space, coding party fiefs
by colour: blue for the party of the Future, orange for the party
of Change and yellow for Hizbullah, the party of God, alongside a
dozen other hues. Noisy rhetoric reverberates in street brawls and
kitchen squabbles.
Lebanon is not just another small, combustible Mediterranean country of
4m people. It has a most unusual form of democracy, based on quotas for
each of the 16 recognised sects in its 128-strong parliament. This mix
of minorities, confused by divisions within sects and ever-shifting
alliances inside and between them, has a tendency to explode, as
it did during Lebanon’s gruelling civil war in 1975-90. The country
is also a cockpit for wider struggles. With outsiders such as Iran,
America, Syria and Saudi Arabia throwing their weight behind competing
factions, the electoral outcome will inevitably be seen as a test of
their relative strengths.
America and its allies want the current parliamentary majority,
a shaky coalition of Sunni Muslims, Druze and assorted Christians,
to retain the hold it gained in the previous election, in 2005, when
it swept to power on a wave of popular anger following the murder of
Rafik Hariri, a five-times prime minister and Sunni strongman.
Iran and Syria, whose peacekeeping army dominated Lebanon until
its hasty withdrawal after Hariri’s murder, seek victory for the
challengers, an alliance of disgruntled Christian factions led by
Michel Aoun, a nationalist former general, and two Shia parties,
Amal and Hizbullah, which field militias that harried Israel during
its occupation of south Lebanon in 1978-2000 and which again battled
the Israelis in a short but bruising war in 2006.
The outsiders are not subtle in their use of influence. America
recently dispatched its vice-president, Joe Biden, on a quick
visit. While expressing hope for a clean election, he held a private
meeting with leaders of the current majority, known in Lebanese
shorthand as the March 14th group, and hinted that a win for their
foes could jeopardise the aid America has lately lavished on the
Lebanese army to reinforce it in the face of Hizbullah’s militias,
which remain superior in training, equipment and morale. For his part,
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, which has showered equally
large sums on its Lebanese protégés, predicts that their victory
will bolster the "resistance"–to Israel and the West–and change
the balance of power in the region.
But although some opinion polls suggest a slight lead for the
opposition, the result may well be close. Oussama Safa, a political
consultant, reckons that, given loyalties within the sectarian
patchwork of voting districts, the two main alliances are each
guaranteed around a third of the seats, leaving only a third of them
in play.
In Lebanon’s multi-seat constituencies, parties encourage block voting
by distributing ballots printed with their list of candidates, but
voters can still cross out some names and write in others. Recent
redistricting should give previously muted voices a bigger say. For
instance, barely 4% of the large Armenian electorate in the capital,
Beirut, bothered to vote in 2005, despite having four seats allotted
to them. They complained that their allocation was in constituencies
dominated by Sunni voters, so the Armenians who were elected were
unrepresentative of their own community. This time their votes will
count for more. In some districts 50 votes, says Mr Safa, will make
a difference.
Yet the result may not produce radical change. Since the 2006 war with
Israel, the two main coalitions have become more polarised. The one
led by Hizbullah says it won a "divine victory" against the Jewish
state in the five-week war, whereas March 14th supporters still
say the Shia militia must be disarmed and blames it for provoking
an Israeli onslaught that caused widespread destruction and killed
1,200 Lebanese, mainly civilians.
Last year Hizbullah and its allies, frustrated by March 14th’s refusal
to bow to their demand for a blocking share of seats in the cabinet,
humiliated their opponents by staging a swift takeover of Sunni
strongholds in Beirut. This move prompted March 14th to climb down
at a reconciliation conference in Qatar. But the fighting infuriated
Sunnis, frightened some of Hizbullah’s Christian partners and has
left the squabbling parties suspended in a precarious equilibrium.
This, no matter what the election result, looks likely to be
maintained, at any rate in the short run. Even if the March 14th group
keeps a slim majority, it cannot counter Hizbullah’s street power under
the charismatic leadership of Hassan Nasrallah, a bearded cleric who
inspires fierce loyalty. Nor can it stop Hizbullah’s quietly effective
infiltration of key institutions, such as the army. In fact, some March
14th leaders already sound willing to accommodate their foes. The Druze
chief, Walid Jumblatt, a weathervane of Lebanese politics and until
recently a loud critic of Iran and Syria, has taken to exchanging
compliments with Mr Nasrallah. A leaked recording of Mr Jumblatt in
a private meeting revealed him disparaging his own coalition allies.
Yet the opposition alliance has weaknesses too. The Christian
supporters of General Aoun feel slighted by the March 14th coalition
and say that it is corrupt, but regard their own alliance with
Hizbullah as tactical rather than strategic. Despite verbal support
for the Shia movement, few Christians, whose own militias from the
civil-war era were largely disarmed, are comfortable about Hizbullah’s
growing military strength. And Hizbullah itself is uneasy with
parliamentary politics. Fearing that it might be blamed for any future
government’s failings, including a possible collapse of international
support for the debt-ridden economy, it is fielding just 11 candidates,
down from 14 in 2005, and may even give up its two cabinet posts.
Lebanon is used to fractious politics. Despite the years of turbulence,
its economy is humming along nicely. It may tolerate another period
of muddle and perhaps even emerge with a stronger centre, joining
moderate parts of both the current coalitions. But the volatility
is bound to persist. When a report in Der Spiegel, a German weekly,
implicated Hizbullah agents in Hariri’s murder and in those of nine
other people associated with March 14th, even the leaders of March
14th scuttled to defuse the bombshell, fearing the fallout across
the country. Stability in Lebanon should never be taken for granted.