Qifa Nabki | A Lebanese Political Blog

A friend of mine, J of Chalcedon, left a great comment a couple days ago in the midst of a discussion about Lebanese electoral politics. I reproduce it below:

“Greetings and salutations. I don’t comment here much anymore, largely because work and the general regional upheaval occupy my attention. I do check out the conversation from time to time, and am struck by the following: why isn’t a forum devoted to Lebanese politics talking about whether a mind-bending general moment affects the beloved kingdom?

“Big chunks of the U.S.-brokered regional security apparatus are collapsing like papier-mache castles; people long dismissed as irrelevant to the fates of their respective polities are forcing the question of their existence; and the idea of an Arab Middle East suddenly matters in a way it hasn’t for decades. And the local conversation basically amounts to who will be the second deputy dogcatcher in the Upper Metn. I get that all politics is local, but Jesus, who cares?

“If people think that Lebanon is so singular that none of what is happening elsewhere matters, then I’d love to have that view explained. And if the general view is that dominant politics can’t be pierced by grand tumult in the neighborhood, then great; let’s hear that explained too. But I look at what conversation takes place here and wonder whether there’s a news blackout that strikes this forum in particular. If nothing else, don’t you want ask why Lebanon can’t/won’t/mustn’t be a candidate for volcanic political change?

“Pardon for the interruption. I too care about the all-important appointment of the next Lebanese minister in charge of administrative reform. Some s*** matters, after all.”

To reiterate, here’s your question for today’s discussion:  “Why can’t/won’t/mustn’t Lebanon be a candidate for volcanic political change?”

Here’s a very quick stab, from my perspective. At the end of the day, Lebanon is relatively inoculated from everything going on in the region precisely because of the lack of any credible center to rebel against. Who could possibly be the target of a nationwide revolt? Every political leader with enough clout to matter has his base, and the last time Lebanon successfully “revolted,” it was only because there was a (foreign) regime to revolt against.

This is not to say that the country will not be affected by the general upheaval. Obviously, in the long run, the new security architecture will have an impact. But trying to predict what that might be is pointless, given that no one even knows who is going to take the place of Mubarak, Ben Ali, and their comrades.

For more on Lebanon’s resistance to revolution, have a look at a couple of good recent pieces in the press: Maya Mikdashi at Jadaliyya, and Fida’ `Itani at al-Akhbar. See also Ghassan Karam at his blog Rational Republic.

And finally, a note to newspaper and magazine editors everywhere: it seems likely  that you’ll be running stories on Arab protest movements for at least the next several weeks, if not longer. Would it be too much to ask to dust off the old thesaurus and start coming up with a few different metaphors for what’s going on? You know what I’m talking about: …And now to Lebanon, where the winds of change sweeping the region have failed to rustle any leaves in the land of the cedars, while the bedrock of Lebanese sectarianism remains firm even as the sands of Arab authoritarianism shift beneath the feet of their subjects…

Winds of change? Shifting sands? Please. You’re in the word business; why not try to use some new ones? If you’d like, I could help.

The floor is open.

Michel and Saad, during their honeymoon phase.

Apologies for the brief posting hiatus. The last time I sat down to write something on this blog, Hosni Mubarak was still president of Egypt. Maybe I should take these breaks more often.

So, what’s happening in Lebanon? It appears that Najib Miqati will not be able to throw together a technocrat cabinet as effortlessly as some had supposed. I don’t imagine that the current stalemate will last as long as the 2009 edition, but at least for the time being, there is no solution in sight. What is interesting to me is that the same politician whose intransigence led to much of the delay the last time around is the one causing problems today: good old General Aoun. (For a brief recap of his role in the 2009 cabinet formation process, see here and [for some comic relief] here).

As much as I’d like to blame the General for the current crisis, however, I believe the real culprit is the Lebanese Constitution. As I’ve tried to argue in the past (here and here):

It should be obvious to all of us that this game they call governance is being played with an unsatisfactory rulebook. In the absence of clear and established procedures, we have to resort to deal-making through public offers and quid pro quos. This is just not sustainable. Nowhere in the Lebanese Constitution does it say anything about cabinet veto powers. Nor, for that matter, does it explain what rules should govern the formation of any cabinet. As far as I can tell, the coalition that wins a majority in parliament could technically put together a cabinet consisting of seven fried won-tons, a shrimp springroll, and nine fortune cookies, without violating the Constitution.

In 2009, Aoun argued that each bloc’s share in the cabinet should be proportionally equivalent to its share in Parliament. Today, he argues that March 14th should not be granted a blocking third in the Miqati cabinet because he does not want the government to be mired in the legislative gridlock that (he helped ensure) plagued Saad Hariri’s cabinet. Hypocritical? Of course. But can you blame him? He’s simply exploiting the ambiguities of the current system to maximize the power of his own bloc.

I argued in 2009 that President Sleiman should have refused to sign any cabinet formation decree without insisting that the principle used to form that cabinet be enshrined in the Constitution (whether it was proportional representation or the unilateralist whims of a majoritarian prime minister). That way, I suggested naively, “we won’t have to watch this movie again four years from now.”

Well, it has barely been a year since Hariri formed his government and we find ourselves in the same position again. This time, we can’t blame the failure-to-launch on the Doha Accord, the Syrian-Saudi reconciliation, or the imperatives of a national unity formula. None of those conditions apply anymore, and the Lebanese politicos still can’t figure out how to divvy up the spoils. Something needs to be done.

So here’s my crowd-sourcing challenge of the day: How is the cabinet formation process managed in other multi-party parliamentary democracies? I presume a constitutionally mandated time limit would go a long way to helping the process along, but there are probably more efficient ways to do this. What are they?

Go forth, find out, report back, and make me smarter.

My good friend George Saghir, one of the best analysts of Syrian economic affairs, has written a thought-provoking essay for Joshua Landis’s Syria Comment, in which he argues that Syria is staring down the same shotgun barrel as virtually every other Arab nation. Unless it finds a way to radically increase economic activity and curb demographic trends, popular protests like the kind we have witnessed in Egypt and Tunisia are inevitable.

The solution? Syria must emulate Turkey, but this, George argues, will be much easier said than done:

For Syria to achieve Turkey’s per capita growth rate of the past 25 years, it must do two things: 1- It must grow its economy by a real inflation-adjusted 8.5% if population growth continues at 3.26%. 2- It can grow by a real inflation-adjusted 6.5% if it succeeds in slowing its population growth down to Turkey’s current level of 1.25%. Either option presents a formidable challenge and highlights the feat that Turkey has pulled off since 1980. Growing an economy at an inflation-adjusted rate of 8.5% is of course what China has been able to do recently (if you trust the country’s statisticians). Chinese planners have also been able to drop the country’s population growth rate to low of 0.63%.

I recommend you read the entire piece, and perhaps George will agree to write something about Lebanon’s economic/demographic challenges for QN. As far as I know, he’s much more optimistic about Syria’s little cousin.

UPDATE: When it rains it pours… Here’s another very interesting piece about Syria by Gary Gambill, editor of Mideast Monitor and one of the smartest commentators on Levantine politics. I make a point of trying to read and re-read everything Gary writes; even when I disagree with him, I find his commentaries to be extremely sharp.