April 19, 2011

The General Begs to Differ

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Elections, Free Patriotic Movement, Hezbollah, Lebanon, March 14, Reform | Tags: , , , , |
[43] Comments 

In a week from today, Lebanon will have been without a functioning government for three months. That’s not quite as long as the four and a half month stint that the country endured in 2009 following the legislative elections, but it’s still an embarrassingly long delay.

Perhaps the most embarrassing thing about it is the fact that the March 14th coalition has opted to stay out of the next government, giving March 8th (the new majority) free rein to put together a cabinet without having to manage the whims and stalling tactics of its opponents. When Saad al-Hariri set about forming a government in 2009, he had to deal with the demands of his own allies as well as those of Hizbullah, Amal, the Free Patriotic Movement, and Abu Tanjara, who all had something to say about a myriad of contentious issues, from the sanctity of the resistance to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

This time around, things should be simpler, right? So what’s taking so long? Inquiring minds (not just my own, but also Nabih Berri’s and Ghazi al-Aridi’s) want to know. There has been much speculation on the various issues that are at stake, but it seems clear that the main obstacle can be summarized as follows:

Two former Lebanese Army generals named Michel want the right to appoint one of their allies to the Interior Ministry. One of the generals represents the largest bloc of MPs in the current parliamentary majority. The other general is the President of the Republic and must sign off on any cabinet lineup for it to be legally approved. Without the bloc leader’s votes, the President would have no cabinet decree to sign. Without the President’s signature, the bloc leader would have no seats in the cabinet.

In other words, you’ve got two equal and diametrically opposed forces bearing down on the same area. What is the result? Stalemate.

As usual, the problem is basically a structural one. The Lebanese Constitution does not provide any elucidation for how to move beyond the current impasse. Aoun is within his rights to demand any portfolio he would like, and President Sleiman is within his rights to accept or refuse any cabinet lineup that is placed before him. Both men are at each other’s mercy. Ironically, however, they are also each at the height of their own powers. Consider the following:

Aoun has never had a better opportunity to shape a cabinet under circumstances as favorable as the current ones, where his bloc represents the senior partner in the parliamentary majority and where the opposition has decided not to join the cabinet. (Given his age and health concerns, he may never get a clearer shot to control the agenda than this one.) Without Aoun, there would be no March 8th cabinet, and if Miqati fails in his efforts, it would be exceedingly difficult for Hizbullah and its allies to appoint anyone else to the job who could pick up where Miqati left off. Aoun knows this, so he is doing what he does best: sticking to his guns and waiting for his opponents (or, as the case may be, his allies) to blink first.

Similarly, Sleiman knows that a Lebanese president is never more powerful than when he is being asked to sign off on a cabinet-forming decree. Almost all of the president’s powers are either ceremonial or revocable. One of the only truly significant things that he can do is to refuse to sign a decree forming a new cabinet. For a nice reflection on the importance of this principle, take a look at the following excerpt from Wikileaks cable  07BEIRUT1724 (which dates back to Nov. 5, 2007, when the US was pushing its March 14th allies to elect a new president with a simple majority.)

The danger is that a compromise over the presidency combined with the “blocking/toppling third” in the cabinet that the pro-Syrians will insist upon puts March 14 in potentially a worse position than it is today, no matter how stellar a good PM’s March 14 credentials might be. The pro-Syrian ministers could not topple Siniora’s cabinet a year ago because they did not have sufficient numbers to do so. In a new cabinet, they are likely to have that third, meaning that they can topple the cabinet at will. This is not an insurmountable problem if the president is March 14: he can work with the parliamentary majority to see that the replacement cabinet is an improvement, without a toppling third given again to the pro-Syrians. But if the president is weak or under Syrian influence, he will likely use his signatory power over the cabinet formation — signatory power that cannot be overridden — to insist again that the pro-Syrians have the toppling third, continuing the cycle of pro-Syrian vetoes over cabinet action… All of this argues, of course, for a credible president committed to March 14 principles as the first step to resolving Lebanon’s political crisis.

In other words, once Sleiman signs that piece of paper, the clock strikes midnight and his carriage turns back into a pumpkin. He has virtually no way to dictate the government’s agenda besides holding out for the best deal he can get right now. What this means, among other things, is that he is probably coming under a great deal of pressure from March 14th (and perhaps also the US ambassador and the Saudis) to continue to play hardball with Aoun.

So why all the fuss over the Interior Ministry? That’s a subject for another post.
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February 19, 2011

Lebanese Cabinet Stalemate: 2011 Edition

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Elections, Free Patriotic Movement, Lebanon, March 14 | Tags: , , , , , |
[195] Comments 

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.

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March 4, 2010

The End of Political Confessionalism in Lebanon?

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Lebanon, My articles, Reform | Tags: , , , , , , , |
[15] Comments 

Many thanks to everyone for all of their kind words and well wishes about the new baby: both mother and daughter are doing very well. As noted yesterday, I will not be at the Safadi/POMED event in Washington tomorrow, but you should still plan on going to hear Mona Yacoubian and Jared Cohen speak about political reform in Lebanon.

If you’d like to know what I was going to talk about, you could do worse than to read this article in The Review, which, as it happens, I managed to finish just in the nick of time.

Here’s are the first couple of paragraphs and a link to the rest of the story. Come back over here to comment.

**

The End of Political Confessionalism in Lebanon?

Elias Muhanna | March 4 2010

Last month, Lebanon’s Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, called for the creation of a committee. Across the land of the cedars, eyebrows rose and pulses quickened.

For this was to be no ordinary committee. Its task, Berri explained, would be to explore the notion of abolishing Lebanon’s system of political confessionalism, in which government posts are divided among the country’s 18 officially recognised religious communities, according to a decades-old formula. Calling the current system a source of corruption and instability, Berri – who heads the Shiite political party Amal – insisted that abolishing it was a “national duty” mandated by the Lebanese Constitution.

Berri’s rather modest proposal immediately provoked a display of unctuous outrage from Lebanon’s Christian politicians. Under the existing framework, seats in parliament are divided equally between Christians and Muslims, despite the fact that the Christian population of Lebanon has fallen well below 50 per cent over the past half-century. Replacing confessionalism with a more democratic system would almost certainly erode the number of Christian elected officials, which is why even Berri’s Christian allies wasted no time in quietly distancing themselves from the idea. Meanwhile, his opponents were outspoken in their rejection of the proposal, many pointing out the irony of a man they consider a corrupt, dyed-in-the-wool confessional leader and former warlord portraying himself as a born-again democrat. Even Lebanon’s active civil society, for whom deconfessionalism is a perennial cause célèbre, sniffed condescendingly at the initiative, leaving it to die a quiet death in a handful of newspaper editorials.

Moves to eliminate political confessionalism in Lebanon have a long history of failure, dating back to the earliest days of the republic. Leftist political parties and secularists advocated for the abolition of the system in the 1950s and 1960s, and the Taif Agreement (which ended the country’s 15-year civil war) called explicitly for the establishment of a non-confessional bicameral legislature, a demand that has gone unheeded for two decades.

(Keep reading)

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January 18, 2010

Picking on Berri

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Free Patriotic Movement, Hezbollah, Lebanon, March 14, Reform | Tags: , , , |
[26] Comments 

The only issue of real import in Lebanon these days — as far as political reform is concerned — is Nabih Berri’s controversial call to establish a committee to explore the ways and means to abolish political sectarianism.

Yes, you heard me right. Berri has called a meeting. A brown bag lunch. A coffee hour. And everybody — from Samir Geagea to Michel Aoun to Saad al-Hariri — has thrown a huge hissy fit.

Let’s pause for a moment and appreciate the irony of this situation. Abolishing political sectarianism — which is ostensibly a core component of Free Patriotic Movement and March 14 values — has now become the issue over which the likes of Aoun, Geagea, and Hariri find common ground to rail against.

Their excuse? It’s too much, too soon. “We have to eliminate sectarianism in our hearts before we eliminate it in our institutions,” says Patriarch Sfeir. Fair enough. But what harm will be done by establishing a commission and starting a national conversation? How else do these politicians propose to eliminate sectarianism in the hearts of the Lebanese? They can barely keep the electricity on 18 hours a day.

Most questionable, to my mind, are the “shoot the messenger” articles that one reads in the press by liberal-minded civil society types. The argument runs as follows: Abolishing sectarianism is important and necessary, but not if Nabih Berri is proposing it:

“Who is [Berri] fooling? The primary benefactors of the abolition of political sectarianism would be the Shia, demographically the largest community in Lebanon, who overwhelmingly side with Hezbollah and Amal. Despite the urgency of eliminating sectarianism from both Lebanese society and the country’s official texts, it would be hard to accept that the largest community, the one controlled by the Hezbollah-led opposition and its arsenal, would be then able to control the country, its institutions and decisions, including UN Security Council resolutions 1559 and 1701.”

This strikes me as nothing but cynical fear-mongering. Let’s assume that Hanin Ghaddar is right, and that the primary benefactors would indeed be “the Shia”. What does that have to do with Nabih Berri “fooling” anyone? Would she be less perturbed if a Christian was calling for the commission? Let’s say Ziad Baroud or President Suleiman proposed the commission (as they actually have done on the record) would that mean that “the Shia” would not be the primary benefactors of abolishing sectarianism? Why is it ok if Baroud proposes it, but not if Berri does? She goes on:

“Berri’s timing is also questionable. He decided to launch his campaign, despite objections from other political leaders, right before preparations for the national dialogue, in which Lebanese leaders are to sit down to discuss Hezbollah’s arms and the national defense strategy. As more March 14 Christians raise the call to disarm Hezbollah, and despite the consensus on the ministerial statement, Berri – and by extension Hezbollah – thought it might be a good idea to warn the Christians with the anti-sectarian mantra, as it threatens them directly.”

Really? No one in Lebanon is under any illusion that any national dialogue talks are going to “disarm Hezbollah”. It’s not even on the table. There is absolutely no political willpower or military firepower to even make it worth raising. So why would Berri have to threaten “the Christians” with de-confessionalism? Which Christians? Does she think that Hezbollah is worried about the Lebanese Forces? And Aoun is Hezbollah’s ally, so why would Berri be trying to scare the FPM?

I interpret Berri’s call for deconfessionalism in a different way. The Speaker understands just as well as anyone that the process of abolishing the current system is going to be long and drawn out. It will involve several steps and will take years. Some of these steps will include the creation of a senate, the redistibution of powers between the different branches of government, administrative decentralization, electoral reform, etc. We’ve discussed these issues on this blog ad infinitum.

However, one of the most important elements of this process is going to have to be the eventual disarmament of Hezbollah. None of the other parties are going to accept a non-confessional system that allows one party to maintain a militia that is stronger than the Lebanese Army. And guess what? AMAL won’t either. This is the subtext of Berri’s strategy, in my opinion. By championing deconfessionalism, he is hitting two birds with one stone. Abolishing the current system would give his coreligionists a fair share in the government of their country, to be sure, but it would also clip the wings of his party’s biggest competitor.

Is Nabih Berri one of the most corrupt sectarian leaders in Lebanon? Yes. Is it farcical for him to be proposing abolishing sectarianism? Yes. Does he have ulterior motives? Probably. But who cares? Civil society should be calling his bluff (if that’s what it is), and trying to make the most out of an opportunity that may not come along again for years. That’s how political reform is achieved, like it or not.

Rather than getting on a high horse, Lebanese civil society should be getting into the trenches.
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September 30, 2009

All for None

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Elections, Free Patriotic Movement, Hezbollah, Lebanon, March 14, My articles, Reform | Tags: , , , , , |
[30] Comments 

I’ve written an opinion piece on the senselessness of consensual politics for The National. It will be out in print this Friday, but the editors at The Review have agreed to put it up a couple of days early on the website, given the timeliness of the subject matter.

The first few paragraphs are below. Finish reading it on The National’s website, and then come on back to comment.

All for None

All For NoneWhat’s wrong with Lebanon? Nearly four months after a landmark election handed the western-backed March 14 coalition a victory over the opposition alliance of Hizbollah, Amal and the Free Patriotic Movement, all efforts to form a government have failed. Rather than taking advantage of his coalition’s victory by putting together a cabinet composed exclusively of his own allies, prime minister-designate Saad Hariri has spent weeks coaxing and cajoling the opposition to join him in a national unity government, in which they would wield significant power.

His reasons for doing so are manifold. On the one hand, his coalition no longer commands a clear majority in parliament, due to the recent defection of the mercurial Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. At the same time, there are the wishes of an important regional ally to consider: Saudi Arabia, which is believed to be courting Syrian co-operation in Iraq in exchange for prodding its Lebanese dependants, the March 14 coalition, into a power-sharing arrangement with Hizbollah. Most importantly, Hariri seems determined to avoid a return to the polarisation of the previous parliamentary term, during which the opposition, demanding more power, quit the government and went on to paralyse the country with massive demonstrations, strikes and an 18-month downtown sit-in.

The opposition’s objective then, as it is now, was to replace the majority cabinet with a national unity government in which it would have veto power over important legislation. Appealing to the timeworn argument that Lebanon cannot be ruled by simple majorities because of its diverse sectarian make-up, leaders like Hassan Nasrallah and Michel Aoun have insisted on transforming the principle of consensual decision-making from an abstract desideratum into a practical necessity.

While March 14 figures have publicly insisted on upholding their prerogative to form a majority cabinet, they too have quietly accepted the idea of sharing power by virtue of a face-saving compromise, the so-called “15-10-5 formula”. Under this arrangement, March 14 would control half the seats of a 30-member cabinet; the opposition would control 10 seats (one short of the votes required to veto major legislation); and the President, Michel Suleiman, would appoint the last five ministers, with the understanding that one of them would be free to vote with the opposition on major, “life-and-death” issues (such as the matter of Hezbollah’s weapons).

The fact that even the majority parties have been more interested in trying to get the best deal they can under this framework, rather than questioning its legitimacy in the first place, betrays their belief – to paraphrase Churchill – that while consensual democracy may be the worst form of government, it is better than all the others.

(Keep reading)

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September 28, 2009

Hizbullah’s Position on the Meaning of Majority Governments

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Elections, Hezbollah, Lebanon | Tags: , , , , |
[25] Comments 
You can have any color...

You can have any color...

Hizbullah MP Nawwaf Moussawi offered a rare explanation of his party’s position on majoritarianism and what the Constitution has to say about how cabinets should be formed. Here’s the relevant bit:

“Yesterday, [Samir Geagea] asked whether or not a majority government was a constitutional government. We say that the Lebanese Constitution considers that if the government enjoys a majority in the parliamentary council, it can earn the vote of confidence.

However, the Lebanese Constitution also says that no power enjoys legitimacy if it goes against the Pact of Coexistence [Preamble, clause J]…  A majority government in Lebanon is one which includes the [parties representing] sectarian majorities and not the majority of a sect or two, since that is against the Pact of Coexistence. Whoever wishes to form a majority government should see that the majority is that featured in the Pact and is not a majority of numbers.” (Translation by NOW Lebanon, with some modifications…)

This is very interesting. Moussawi is basically saying that there is a contradiction in the Constitution. On the one hand, a government can be formed on the basis of a simple majority vote in Parliament. However, unless that government is composed of the parties that command the most support among their own sects, the result is unconstitutional.

In other words, a “majority cabinet” is not one that can earn the confidence of the parliamentary majority, but rather one that can earn the confidence of the most popular sectarian parties. This is the meaning, apparently, of coexistence.

I have an article coming out in The National this Friday that deals with some of these issues, so stay tuned.

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September 15, 2009

The Constitutional Backdrop to Lebanon’s Cabinet Deadlock

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Elections, Free Patriotic Movement, Hezbollah, Lebanon, March 14, Reform | Tags: , , , |
[31] Comments 
Not really the Lebanese Constitution...

Not really the Lebanese Constitution...

We hear a lot of rhetoric these days from FPM leaders about Saad al-Hariri’s arrogant unilateralism in his cabinet-formation dealings, a unilateralism that they say violates the constitutional principle of “communal coexistence” (Preamble, clause j). Accompanying this argument is the occasional complaint about the Ta’if Accord, which (so the Aounists say) stripped the Maronite President of his powers and vested them in the Sunni Prime Minister.

I’ve heard this argument so many times that I think it’s worth dedicating a post and a debate to it.  In my opinion, the Aounist position grossly oversimplies matters. Although the Ta’if Accord did give the Prime Minister the authority to form the government – free from binding parliamentary consultations – it did not turn him into an executive colossus, like the pre-Ta’if Maronite president.

Before Ta’if, the Prime Minister, the Council of Ministers, and even the Chamber of Deputies served at the pleasure of the President. He had the authority to appoint, fire, and dissolve at whim. The current powers of the Prime Minister are much more limited.

In particular, the Prime Minister’s ability to appoint a government is constitutionally checked in two ways:

  1. The President must sign off on the cabinet (Article 53.4);
  2. The Chamber of Deputies (i.e. parliament) must give the cabinet its vote of confidence before it can act (Article 64). This means that the premier cannot simply form the cabinet of his choice, as the Free Patriotic Movement leaders allege; he is bound by the demands of (at least half) the parliament, as well as those of the President.

As we saw last week, a Prime Minister’s cabinet proposal can easily be derailed by the Parliament if it fails to satisfy certain bloc leaders. Even though the Lebanese opposition did not have the votes in Parliament to block Hariri’s lineup, two of his own key allies – the Lebanese Forces and the Kata’eb – opposed it, thereby condemning his efforts to failure. What seems to frustrate the FPM is that their wishes don’t hold as much weight as the wishes of Hariri’s own allies, but this is surely not the fault of the Lebanese Constitution.

As easy as it is to be cynical about the standoff, however, it has brought many important questions about the architecture of Lebanon’s political system to the surface. With no Syrian hegemon around to herd cats and crack heads, we are finally seeing the Ta’if Accord put to the test, as Lebanese politicians try to exploit every ambiguity and apparent loophole in the Constitution to maximize their political gains.

This is a good thing. Under the best circumstances, it has the potential to force Lebanon to address structural problems of representation and democratic process, and to perhaps arrive at a better framework. However, this will only happen if the current crisis is framed as a debate about constitutional amendments — like Ta’if — rather than about one-time political deals — like the Doha Agreement.

The only person who can do this is the President of the Republic, who is the sole figure tasked with acting as the guarantor of the Constitution. If I were one of his advisors, I would tell him to insist upon the following principle: he should not sign the decree forming any cabinet unless the principle used to form that cabinet is enshrined in the Constitution as an amendment.

In other words, if the cabinet is formed using the principle of proportional representation (which is what the FPM is demanding) – where each bloc gets a share equivalent to its weight in parliament – then this should be the model used from now on. If blocs are given the right to choose their own ministers, then that’s what should happen from now on. And so on and so forth.

This will have the effect of forcing all sides to consider the long-term potential effects of their short-term demands. Does the FPM really want to strip the Prime Minister of the authority to form a government, thereby condemning every government from now on to be a national unity government, with all the deadlock and inefficiency that this entails?

If so, then what powers should be reserved for the Prime Minister to mediate effectively between all the different groups guaranteed seats in the cabinet? What principle should govern the distribution of portfolios? Who is the final arbiter?

As long as the Lebanese opposition continues to call into question the legitimacy of the Prime Minister’s powers — on the basis that they violate a constitutional principle of communal coexistence — they should be asked to present an alternative, in the form of a constitutional amendment. That way, we won’t have to watch this movie again four years from now.
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June 24, 2009

Coalition of the Unwilling

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Elections, Free Patriotic Movement, Hezbollah, Lebanon, March 14, My articles | Tags: , , , |
[31] Comments 

bestfriends4everI have a short piece over at ForeignPolicy.com‘s “The Argument” blog about the cabinet formation. Here are the first couple of paragraphs, with a link to the rest. Come on back and comment, if you’re so inclined.

Coalition of the Unwilling

By Elias Muhanna

When the March 14 coalition won a parliamentary majority in Lebanon’s national election two weeks ago, there was much crowing and backslapping heard the world over. The United States, Europe, and the Sunni Arab regimes hailed the result as a victory for Lebanon’s “moderates” and a defeat for the allies of Syria and Iran — foremost among them Hezbollah. After a campaign season full of bleak predictions about March 14′s electoral prospects and indeed its political future, the result gave the coalition a much-needed shot in the arm and put to rest, if only temporarily, any doubts about its governing mandate.

Now comes the hard part. Consultations to choose a prime minister and form a cabinet have run aground on a shoal of familiar disputes. Although Saad Hariri (son of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri) has widespread support to become the next premier, the parceling out of ministerial portfolios is a much trickier task, due largely to the opposition’s demand for a veto-wielding share of the cabinet. Without a “one-third-plus-one” proportion of cabinet seats, Hezbollah and its allies have said that they might simply boycott the government altogether, leaving March 14 to govern alone.

In a country other than Lebanon, such a state of affairs wouldn’t necessarily be cause for concern in the eyes of the ruling coalition. However, the nature of the Lebanese political system mandates that all of the country’s sectarian communities be represented within government, and so the absence of parties like Hezbollah and Amal — who command overwhelming support among Lebanese Shiites — would seem to be a contravention of the spirit of consociationalism embodied by the Lebanese Constitution.

(Read the rest)
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June 5, 2009

The Looming Kerfuffle

Posted by Qifa Nabki under Elections, Lebanon | Tags: , |
[31] Comments 

forestCalling all framers! We’ve got a constitution down at Sahet al-Nijmeh… Victim is on the ground, unresponsive… Urgent attention is needed. Over.

Two days from now, I hope to be sitting in traffic, on my way to cast a vote of protest against a powerful za’im who will win in a landslide. We’ve been doing the numbers on this blog for months now, so there’s not much point in releasing any last minute predictions. All of the pollsters seem to think that the opposition will win, but the margin has gotten narrower over the past few weeks. Michael Young points out in The Daily Star today that Michel Aoun’s performance in 2005 turned the forecasts into “mush”, so let’s just try to enjoy the suspense, shall we?

Here’s what I’d like to say, though, regarding the post-election process. While I hope that the various players follow the ICG report’s recommendations to “support the broad principles of power-sharing”, it is utterly inexcusable that this government finds itself stumbling heedlessly towards the Forest of Constitutional Ambiguities, where it will surely lose its way as it has repeatedly over the past four years.

I asked Karim Pakradouni recently if he thought that we would see demonstrations and sit-ins again if March 14 won and didn’t give the opposition a cabinet veto, or whether there would be a crisis of legitimacy for a cabinet in which the Future Movement did not participate. He responded in the same way that countless analysts have responded when asked this very question on TV and radio talk shows: “I don’t think so. I really don’t think that conditions are what they were in 2006-07, so I don’t think that it will go that far.”

To which my response was: “Why the hell not?”

Ok, I didn’t really say that, but I should have. My friends, 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.

When Syria ruled Lebanon with American and Saudi consent, procedural ambiguities didn’t matter; in fact, they were an asset. Today, they are a very serious liability. President Suleiman, in my opinion, should have put his foot down at some point during the past twelve months and said: “Ya shabab, we’re not going to have an election until we can all agree on what the rules are, after the election.” As is, we’re flying blind.

Happy voting, everyone. Be safe out there, don’t do anything idiotic, and check back in here on Sunday night.

** See also Paul Salem’s article in The Daily Star today, “Lebanon will need a coalition government“. Note that he doesn’t say whether this coalition government should give veto powers to the minority.
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