The Jockeying Has Begun

Posted on by Mustapha

Political rhetoric flies sky-high as the battle for the presidency begins.


The coveted prize..

Listening to the politicians’ speeches yesterday (videos: Jumblat’s speech, Jemayel’s ) one would get the impression that an inaudible Sunday gunshot triggered the fierce race for the Lebanese Presidency.

In the old days, things were simpler. A dictator (Syria) dictated its commandments and Lebanese Presidents were immediately rubber stamped. If one were to squeeze through the loopholes (like René Mouawad), he would be summarily executed.

Nice and easy. It gave us the chance to blame someone else for our problems. In fact, we always bragged that if Lebanon were “allowed” to rule itself, none of our problems would have happened.

Not so fast. Lebanon, it turned out, is not so homogeneous. We seem evenly divided between two different kinds of freedom fighters. The only freedom we both want is freedom from each other.

Some think one side can eventually “win”. Some, like Patriarch Sfeir have taken the road of “politician bad, soldier good“. But Some still believe a compromise can be reached. That should happen soon, loud bargaining notwithstanding, because some are beginning to long for the simpler old days..

0 Responses to The Jockeying Has Begun

  1. so the question must be asked, who is to accept the task of leading Lebanon out of the mess which it currently finds itself in? can the President be a member of March 14? answer is probably no. and the President will not come from March 8 – so do most agree that it will be a compromise candidate? and if so, will it be one of the following – Gen. Sleiman (if you consider him a compromise candidate), Charles Rizk, Demanios Khattar???? Thoughts????

  2. Michel Suleiman is not elligible to be president according to the constitution.

    Then again, Lebanese leaders continue to trample on said constitution and treat it like toilet paper, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes a serious push for it. I wouldn’t really call him a “compromise candidate” though. He’s nothing more than Lahoud II. He’s closely tied to the Syrian regime, and if March 14 accept him as a compromise, they’re even stupider than I think they are.

    A true statesman and national leader (as opposed to a representative of the Christians, or a staunch M14 or M8 guy) would be nice. But I frankly don’t think there is such a thing as a true statesman or independent in Lebanon at the moment.

  5. “…freedom from each other.”

    Okay…if you mean freedom from tyranny, but in the free world freedom is a gift one gives TO another not of the same ethnicity, race or creed. Example: To free slaves from bondage.

    In the Middle East “freedom fighters” (an oxymoron in this context)frequently battle for no one but themselves, a particular ethnicity or creed, while ignoring or abusing the civil and human rights of others. If the goal of a so-called freedom fighter is to continuously dominate others, then that march is toward enslavement and not to grant freedom.

  6. valiumjunky, you see how unfair is our system; yes Ghassan Tueini would have been a great president, unfortunately, the higher position he could get is Deputy of the President of the Parliament.

  9. … he is one of Lebanon’s sharpest jurists and legal scholars, the first in the modern history of Lebanon to have (in the early 1950s) conducted court proceedings ENTIRELY in Lebanese vernacular; NOT in French, NOT in Arabic (as had been the tradition then), but in good old LEBANESE! A language both plaintifs and defenders could actually understand.
    He’s a long shot though. Jamaleddin is a Shi’a from Baalbeck and a committed Lebanonist (and protégé of Saïd Akl’s to boot…) But I suppose I could have stopped at the first substantive A Shi’a cannot be genetically modified to qualify for President of the great republic of Lebanon. Any Maronite two-bit illiterate thug (Frangieh Sr. etc..) or quisling (Shhaab etcetera) will do.

    I guess we’re doomed to relive this frightening scene out of Bill Murray’s Punxsutawney Pa., over and over and over again, until we get it right (or at least until we’ve paid our Karmic debt, whatever it is.)