Qifa Nabki
Lebanon
The Looming Kerfuffle
Calling 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 … Continue reading
Bring it Aoun
I’ve written an article for The National about Michel Aoun and the Free Patriotic Movement. If you start reading now, you may just finish it before the election (it’s a little… long-winded). Many thanks to the one they call Jonathan Shainin, an editor’s editor if there ever was one. Bring it Aoun Michel Aoun’s supporters … Continue reading
A Respectable Election
A couple of recent op-eds by Arab journalists in large Western newspapers ask America not to interfere in the upcoming Lebanese election. Omayma Abdel-Latif, writing in The New York Times, asks Obama to “stay out of our elections”, arguing that his administration’s decision to send Vice President Joe Biden for a morale-boosting visit last week … Continue reading
Bracketology… Lebanese Election Style
This may be even too nerdy for the likes of qifanabki.com readers, but I trust not. Via Richard Chambers, the indomitable chief of IFES in Lebanon, I give you the ultimate pre-election prognostication wallchart: print it, fill it out at your leisure, and don’t forget to keep us informed about how well you did.
Some of my best friends are Shiites…
Mitch Prothero has an interesting piece about the FPM-Hizbullah relationship in The National, in which he recounts a scene at a campaign rally where the Hizbullah partisans bussed in from al-Dahiya to provide a little multi-confessional je ne sais quoi got a little too Shiite for the taste of the Aounist crowd control officials. Here’s … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…