The main political blocs face each other at the polls in the face of a divided and weakened opposition to the system
MADRID, 15 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The electoral colleges in Lebanon are now open for key elections for the future of the country, mired in a very serious political and economic crisis aggravated by the August 2020 explosions in the port of Beirut and the coronavirus pandemic, which have left part of the population submerged in poverty and in the face of power cuts and the increase in the prices of basic products.
The vote inside the country, which is preceded by the one held between May 6 and 8 by Lebanese living abroad, is presented as a new power struggle between the two main opposing blocs in the country, the Movement March 14 –which seeks better ties with the United States and Saudi Arabia– and the March 8 Movement –led by AMAL and the Hezbollah militia party, both Shiites–.
However, another block comes into play that has gained strength and popular support due to its opposition to the dominant political class, especially in the face of the deepening of the crisis, and that hopes to be able to obtain sufficient representation in Parliament to promote its agenda.
However, these dozens of opposition political groups, popularly known as ‘Zaura’ (Revolution) –arising from the anti-government demonstrations of 2019–, have not managed to agree on a united front that allows them to gather votes, so in the end they could not achieve their objectives, amid the growing disenchantment of the population due to their differences.
The parliamentarians will also be the first since the aforementioned protests at the national level, which caused the fall of the Government then headed by Saad Hariri, which led to long processes of political stagnation and the formation of three other Executives to date -one of them headed again by Hariri after the 2020 explosions in the port of Beirut–.
The last elections resulted in a victory for the March 8 Movement, so the March 14 Movement hopes to obtain results that will return control of the legislative body, although Hariri, leader of Al Mustaqbal (Future) has advocated the abstention.
The former prime minister and historic Sunni political leader — son of Rafik Hariri, who died in February 2005 in a bomb attack in Beirut that left more than 20 dead — announced in January that he was leaving politics, in a severe blow to Al Mustaqbal that led various high officials to call for abstention or to present themselves as independent.
The situation could lead to uncertainty regarding the votes of the Sunni community, especially in the framework of a political and power-sharing system based on religion. Without Hariri, the community has been left without a clear political leader, which could be used by other formations, especially among the opposition.
For its part, the Lebanese Forces, led by Samir Geagea, could improve their results, given that their main rival for the Christian vote, the Free Patriotic Movement (FMP), led by Yebran Basil, has suffered a drop in credibility, impacted by Basil’s bad image and the role of the president, Michael Aoun, during the crisis.
In the case of the Shia community, AMAL and Hezbollah are expected to firmly maintain their support, although there are doubts about their ability to mobilize in the face of the deep economic crisis in the country, which has generated great disenchantment and has led to an increase in of crime in Beirut’s majority Shia southern suburbs.
For this reason, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah this week called for participation and said that the elections will be “a 2006 political war,” referring to the conflict between the party-militia and Israel. “Some say that they will not vote for the resistance because of the economic crisis, but we tell them that the resistance will ensure that oil and gas are extracted from the territorial waters to solve the crisis,” he said.
In this context, Maroun Sfeir, an analyst at The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, stressed that the legitimacy of the elections “will depend to a large extent on the management of the vote, the participation and the capacity of the electoral authorities when it comes to to overcome the myriad of exceptional challenges brought about by an unprecedented economic crisis, a collapsing infrastructure and a fragile security situation.
The vote will also take place in a context of deep crisis –deepened by the conflict in Syria and the sanctions against Damascus– which has set off alarms at the international level and led the World Bank to affirm in June 2021 that the latter it is one of the worst recorded globally since the mid-19th century, with a drastic drop of nearly 40 percent in GDP per capita since 2018.
In recent months, the international community, led by France, has pressured the Lebanese authorities to implement a series of reforms to ensure greater democratization of the country and a reduction in the weight of the political-economic elites, accused of corruption. on a large scale.
Likewise, the government led by Nayib Mikati has been in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to achieve an aid package to alleviate the situation. This package, of about 3,000 million dollars (about 2,890 million euros), would be far below solving the situation, given that the losses are estimated at about 70,000 million dollars (about 67,400 million euros), as revealed in December 2021 the deputy prime minister, Saadé al Shami.
The IMF has made the delivery of the package conditional on a series of structural reforms, including the approval of the Budgets for 2022, an audit of the accounts of the Central Bank of Lebanon and a restructuring of the banking system, all of which would be left to the next authorities, although the traditional political tensions have slowed down all these processes.
Nicholas Blanford recently defended in an article for the ‘thnk tank’ Atlantic Council that “the application of the reforms demanded by the IMF could be something existential for the political elite”, which could work to prevent them from getting ahead and lose relevance or their positions political or economic power.
In 2018, Lebanon already achieved the international commitment to deliver a package of more than 11,000 million dollars (approximately 10,590 million euros) to improve the country’s infrastructure in exchange for a series of reforms that did not materialize, so the money was not delivered, one of the causes of the crisis that is currently ravaging the country.
Faced with this situation, the Lebanese Economy Minister, Amin Salam, revealed on Monday that the World Bank had authorized an emergency loan worth 150 million dollars (about 142.2 million euros) to import wheat, although it still has to be approved by the Executive and ratified by the new Parliament.
Therefore, the elections appear as a key moment for the future of the country and its population in a situation in which, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), poverty levels and food insecurity range between 27 and 30 percent of Lebanese, a situation even worse among refugees.
Lebanon hosts one million Syrian refugees, a quarter of the population, while it hosts 300,000 Palestinian refugees. Thus, the population has increased by 28 percent in five years, so the resulting situation, combined with political tensions, poses a threat to the stability and security of the country.
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