A Lebanese Thing

So what exactly is going on in Lebanon?

Yesterday, the idea of forming a Technocrat government was struck down only hours after it was floated. This time, it was the “parliamentary majority”, once known as the Opposition, who (rightly) rejected the proposal. This blog agrees: nobody in their right mind can expect a bunch of experts with no political backbone to make the serious decisions this country needs.

Today, a new effort to form a government is under way, but the question everyone is asking is this: Why is it that a country that just came out from a free and fair election which resulted in a clear majority, is finding so much difficulty in forming a government with a strong mandate?

There might be a lot of answers, like blaming specific parties, whether external (Syria, Israel, U.S, France) or internal (Hezbollah, Lahhoud, Jumblat or Aoun). But at the heart of our inability to govern lies a culture war that is an important case study for all those interested in the future of democracy in the Middle east.

This war has always existed in Lebanon; it is taking place right now between two schools of thoughts with opposing governing philosophies: Winner-takes-all and Consociationalism.

The winner-takes-all system, championed by the Likes of Walid Jumblat and preferred by the younger generation, calls for Lebanon to have a democratic governance system, similar to the one used by the rest of the democratic countries: The parties who win the elections should be free to form a ruling coalition whose components represent the majority in parliament. The other parties would be the opposition that monitors the government’s performance. The system is supposed to work because the government would be responsible and accountable for the decisions it makes, and the opposition would have the incentive to scrutinize the government’s performance to show the voters why they could do a better job. In the next elections, the voters would decide who did a better job and vote accordingly.

The Consociationalist system, championed by Patriarch Sfeir, President Lahhoud, Najib Mikati and the late Rafic Hariri, argues that Lebanon cannot be ruled by the victor and vanquished mentality: All decisions should be made by consensus of all parties, whether major or minor. It is a system strongly averse to confrontation and is mostly favored by the Christians. In a recent meeting of the Maronite bishops, the clergymen announced that until Lebanon gets non-confessional parties (like the ones in the west), the winner-takes-all mentality couldn’t apply. In other words: Never.
(But don’t a lot of democracies have religious parties? look at Israel, it still has a winner takes all system)

Both these systems have advantages and disadvantages, and the back and forth movement we’re seeing from the appointed prime minister is nothing but a very complicated effort to find a working compromise between the two.

This blog supports the winner-take-all system, but it’s realistic about the difficulties in achieving it. For example, if Hezbollah is out of the government, and the ruling coalition decides to disarm it, can it do so?

No body knows yet how to deal with this issue; this perhaps explains the silence of the international players, who occasionally voice their disbelief at this tiny and hugely complicated country called Lebanon.