Qifa Nabki
Elections
Sois Libanais
Is Walid Jumblatt brilliant, senile, or both? While seated amongst a klatsch of shriveled Druze elders, the PSP leader launched into a diatribe against his Christian and Sunni allies, which was captured on a camera phone and posted on YouTube. (Who knew that shriveled Druze elders were YouTube savvy?) I don’t know about you, but … Continue reading
Sois Belle Et Vote
We here at qifanabki.com are completely befuddled over the question of what all of these brilliant political ad designers are going to do when the electoral campaign is over. What do you see as the subtext here? No, no, no, I refuse to believe that there is no subtext… we may be a superficial people … Continue reading
After the Elections
I was putting the finishing touches on a piece about the post-election situation when good old Walid “Weather Vane” Jumblatt gave me a nice quote to lead with. On Easter Sunday’s “Beirut-Shweifat-Dahiyeh-Mountains reconciliation” (where old alliances, like Christ, rose up after being left for dead), Jumblatt declared: “Elections are an important phase, but more important … Continue reading
The Magic Number (or, “Who Will Win Lebanon’s Elections, part 2”)
I was thinking yesterday about the likely makeup of the next parliament, in the event of an opposition win. The question that came to mind was: “How many seats does the Change & Reform bloc need to win in order to push the opposition over the 64-seat mark?” For the past several months, polls published … Continue reading
The Age of Nasrallah
Thirty or forty years from now, a Lebanese child will ask his grandparents what it was like to live during the age of Nasrallah. The myths and symbolism that swirl around the man have already begun to coalesce into a hagiography of sorts; one can only imagine that his shadow will grow longer in the … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…