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"It would be better for Lebanon to be placed under international administration"

2020-08-12T17:07:10.240Z


FIGAROVOX / TRIBUNE - No renewal of the Lebanese political class is possible in the short term. The only chance of the Pays du Cèdre is an international “grip”, as Emmanuel Macron said half-heartedly. And this is the opinion of a part of the Lebanese, argues Samir Ayoub.


A former student of the Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth and the Université Paris II-Assas, Samir Ayoub, Franco-Lebanese, is a professor of management sciences and former director general of ESSCA School of Management.

While Lebanon mourns its dead and still heals the wounded, France and the UN coordinate international aid. The Lebanese people, meanwhile, take to the streets to cry out their pain and the resignation of the government further plunges the country into uncertainty. During his lightning trip there, President Macron clarified his desire not to interfere in a political system whose leaders were democratically elected by the people. However, Lebanon is nothing more than a facade representative regime, making futile any attempt at internal reconstruction of the country without international "control".

The Western world has been urging the Lebanese authorities for several months, and more since the explosion, to give the people back control of their political destiny. Early parliamentary elections may therefore appear as the expected solution: on the contrary, it is a false good idea.

In Lebanon, we vote not for the project that the candidate has for the country, but for what he can bring to each voter, in terms of financial assistance, employment, tarring of the road opposite. from his house.

This initiative would only be effective if the Lebanese voter was perfectly familiar with the democratic game with as primary objectives, the interest of the Nation and the public good. However, for 30 years, the Lebanese people have been fed on a biased form of electoral education, based on patronage: political action is akin to adding support to the private interests of voters. So that we vote not for the project that the candidate has for the country, but for what he can bring to each voter, in terms of direct financial assistance, employment, tarring of the road in in front of his house, or even speeding up any administrative process.

Lebanon still lacks basic public services such as electricity or 24-hour drinking water, nor decent traffic routes.

In turn, most elected officials, instead of investing State resources in an efficient public service, have them available to directly serve the demands of their constituents by paying a commission in the process. Also, all infrastructure work must necessarily go through a system of commissions and retrocommissions. This is the main reason why modern Lebanon to this day still does not have basic public services such as electricity or drinking water 24 hours a day, correct traffic routes, a waste management system, without talk about public transport.

Read also: "We must give young Lebanese reasons to hope"

Although a vast movement was initiated in October 2019 under the leadership of the youth advocating the Revolution ("al-thawra") immediately, we understand that it is premature today to believe in truly promising elections. of a reformist impulse. This educated and cosmopolitan youth unfortunately remains in the minority in the country. Political renewal is emerging and will be caught off guard.

The outcome to be foreseen in the short term is to bring back to power the same people and an organized system of corruption.

Therefore, the outcome to be expected is to return to power the same people and an organized system of corruption.

The passageway is extremely narrow: even if transparent elections were organized, any overhaul of the representative regime in 2020 would also require a drastic change in a Lebanese constitution that has had its day.

The last major constitutional reform aimed to mark the end of the civil war in the early 1990s and to ensure denominational representativeness. On the basis of the Taif agreement of October 1989, half of the seats in Parliament are allocated to Christians and the other half to Muslims. The distribution of the executive is also constitutional: the President of the Republic is Christian, the Prime Minister, Sunni and the President of Parliament, Shiite. This composition, modeled on the demographic distribution of Lebanon in the early 90s and implemented in a very specific context, is no longer relevant at all and confessionalism deeply biases the democratic game.

The Lebanese national political context is very interdependent on religion and religious representatives.

The solution could be the secular state, but this cannot be abruptly imposed in a national political context which is very interdependent on religion and religious representatives. The change can only be gradual and the separation of state and religions a long-term task. Otherwise, the risk of plunging Lebanon again into sectarian clashes cannot be ruled out.

The third brake on an internally orchestrated crisis exit is linked to the country's geopolitical situation. Although Lebanon proclaimed its independence in 1943, it remains a prisoner and subject to several foreign forces, at the crossroads of all the conflicts in the region: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Syria and the struggle between Iran and the 'Saudi Arabia. None of these foreign influences has any interest for the moment in letting Lebanon do it.

For Iran and Syria, the risk would be to abandon Hezbollah and the Shiite minorities in the region. For Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the risk would be to allow Shiite influence to grow, constituting a threat to the stability of the Sunnis. In turn, the United States has acquired a growing influence in the Land of the Cedars in order to guarantee - among other things - Israel's stability in the region.

As for the other Western countries, they cannot abandon the Eastern Christian community, which in thirty years has become a minority in the country, at the risk of causing Lebanon to fall into a situation identical to that of Syria or Iraq.

So many institutional reforms cannot be carried out peacefully with so many stakeholders. A transitional phase seems essential.

So many institutional reforms cannot be carried out peacefully with so many stakeholders. A transitional phase seems essential in order to avoid any disastrous escalation.

Therefore, if no short and medium-term internal measure can lead to the renewal of the political class and the reforms necessary to redress the country, it becomes both urgent and inevitable to place Lebanon provisionally under the international administration of the Nations. United.

Such a resolution can only be taken if a situation represents a threat to the peace, as defined in Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations). It is stated here that this is indeed the case with the situation in Lebanon today.

No member of the Security Council has any interest in opposing an international takeover of the situation in Lebanon.

It is of course to be feared that China or Russia will oppose their veto, Moscow, in particular, being in line with Iran and Syria. But such a critical situation in Lebanon is a source of security instability for all the countries of the region, the repercussions of which can extend far beyond the Middle East. No member of the Security Council therefore has a lasting interest in opposing an international takeover of the situation, as evidenced by the promptness with which all the countries have provided humanitarian aid to Lebanon, even Israel, which is nevertheless in a state of war. with him.

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Such a device could be based on the UNIFIL peacekeepers who have already been operating in Lebanon since 1978 to preserve peace on the Israeli border. It will be essential to strengthen them and extend their mandate to the rest of the country so that the reforms are carried out in a climate that guarantees the security of all Lebanese.

France, in this situation, enjoys strong popular support: some of the Lebanese are calling for the return of the League's mandate.

As for France in this situation, it enjoys strong popular support, to such an extent that some of the Lebanese are calling for the return of the mandate. This system dating from the League of Nations is now legally obsolete. However, France could be given a privileged role by the United Nations, within the framework of Chapter VII mentioned above. Their common history imposes on France this role of first roped party facilitating the rise of Lebanon towards cleared summits and a clearer horizon.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2020-08-12

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