text:
Michel Aoun
The Electoral Law and the Detente
Prime Minister Saad Hariri shakes hands with MP Michel Aoun at his Downtown Beirut residence, Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016. (The Daily Star/ Mohamad Azakir)
The amount of political statements and political activity is not necessarily proportional to political productivity. If there would be anything out there to prove that, it would be the two months following the government formation in Lebanon.
Throwback to 2016
Things happened very fast in the Autumn of 2016. The President was elected on the 31st of October, the Prime Minister was named on the 3rd of November, the government was formed on the 19th of December, and it received the confidence vote by the 27th of December. It was – by Lebanese standards – one of the quickest government formations in the past decade. Why?
As I said in December, while postponing the cabinet formation would have seemed natural in the world of Lebanese politics, it would have sent a wrong message to the people: That the President and the Prime Minister do not want elections. Stalling with the government formation could make the President and the Prime Minister look as culprits should a parliamentary extension happen or the electoral law remain the same: The parliament can not legislate without a cabinet in a power in order to pass a new electoral law, and a caretaker cabinet has never in Lebanon's modern history overseen parliamentary elections. The failure to form a cabinet would have thrown all the blame of a possible parliamentary extension or an election under the 2008 law (known as the 1960 law) on the President and the Prime Minister (since they are the only two persons in the entire republic who sign the government formation decree). Since the Prime Minister and the President are the leaders of the two biggest blocs in parliament and are facing new rivalries , it would seem wise to show at least early positive signs regarding their rule and this summer's potential parliamentary elections. Now, and with the relatively early formation of the government, all of Lebanon's MPs would equally share the blame of possible electoral failure .
It's the 2nd of January 2017. The new Lebanese government is up and running. The Lebanese Forces is in love with the Free Patriotic Movement, the Free Patriotic Movement is in love with the Future Movement, and Hezbollah is in love with the Free Patriotic Movement. President Aoun managed to create the weirdest ruling coalition in the modern history of Lebanon. With the exceptions of the PSP, the Kataeb, and the half-exception of Amal, everyone seemed to be on board with the new status-quo. The last time Lebanon had so much political stability was in 2010. So it was the perfect time to draft an electoral law: The parliamentary elections were 5 months away, the deadline for voting a new electoral law without having to do a "technical" parliamentary extension was theoretically the 20th of February, and aside from the fact that the current parliament had 8 years to find a new electoral alternative (including a 4 year parliamentary extension designed solely for that purpose) and that the new/old establishment had 74 years to fix things electorally, the atmosphere was optimistic. Politicians had 50 days, from the 2nd of January till the 20th of February, to redeem themselves and finally draft a good electoral law and prepare for elections.
Expectation vs reality
Now you would think that the first priority of the new government – being a "unity" one – would be to draft a new electoral law, focus on the May 2017 parliamentary election, and avoid working on all kinds of new major projects before the new parliament gets elected. After all, the parliamentary elections were mentioned four times in the new cabinet's policy statement. It was without any question supposed to be a cabinet whose sole purpose should be planning elections and overseeing them (the media calls it in Lebanon "حكومة إنتخابات"). Except Lebanese politicians did the exact opposite: After years of inactivity, the parliament finally met in January, but instead of discussing the electoral law – plot twist – it discussed everything but that. 73 draft laws not related to elections.
Earlier that month, the Lebanese cabinet, instead of actually trying to find common ground between its ruling parties, decided that it was easier to live in denial. In its first sitting since being formed in December, Lebanon's new cabinet passed two gas and oil decrees defining the blocks and specifying conditions for production and exploration tenders and contracts. It was not the time to pass the gas and oil decrees, and it was definitely not up to politicians who won the confidence of a government elected 8 years ago to decide the fate of billions of dollars of Lebanese resources.
Did I mention that they also passed in the middle of all that, a law that raised the compensation to the families of former lawmakers to 100%? As smooth as Lebanese politicians can be.
Now to be fair, a subcommittee made from representatives of the Future Movement, the FPM, Amal, and Hezbollah was meeting every once in a while to reach a consensual solution regarding the electoral law, but it was also not the time to procrastinate on electoral laws. They had 4 regular years from 2009 to 2013 and 4 extra years from 2013 to 2017 to discuss the ethics of elections, and already had dozens of proposals on the table.
Lebanon needed intensive, continuous parliamentary sessions focused exclusively on the electoral law in January, not a subcommittee formed by 4 establishment parties, whose sole objective seemed to send a message on who gets to make the decisions in Lebanese politics, making the Kataeb and the PSP panic in the process.
Lebanese lawmakers and cabinet members had already wasted the first 30 days doing every unnecessary thing they could find, and just when you think things couldn't get any worse, they decided for the first time since twelve years, that it was finally time to discuss a state budget. Apparently voting a new fair electoral law and preparing parliamentary elections on time so that the new elected legitimate parliament would draft a new state budget seemed too mainstream for our politicians.
In late January, a warning voiced by President Michel Aoun on his willingness to obstruct the parliamentary elections and keep the legislative body vacant in case a new electoral law wasn't passed, was criticized by al-Mustaqbal ministers who described the stance as unacceptable. While it is constitutionally possible for a Lebanese President to forbid the parliament from meeting for a while (in case MPs want to use a parliamentary session to extend their terms), there is no possible/legal way for Aoun to cancel an election and impose a legislative vacancy or to force an electoral law without parliamentary approval. On the contrary, Aoun's threats should be seen as preemptively deculpabilising the presidency should a parliament fail to pass a new electoral law. In other words, Aoun's warning of escalation is the proof everyone needed that there might not be a new electoral law in the near future after all. In fact, it seems that the FPM are already embracing themselves for that scenario, with their new minister of energy basically campaigning on TV with his electricity and gas and oil projects before declaring his candidacy for the next parliamentary elections.
Just like 2013 (or the Lebanese Political Time Machine)
Fast forward one month.
It was now the 1st of February and since the deadline to vote a new electoral law was theoretically 20 days away, Lebanese politicians decided it was finally time…to go back to 2013. Literally. LITERALLY. LITERALLY. While the speaker was supporting proportional representation and being as pessimistic as 2013 when discussing the possibility of Lebanese politicians reaching common ground, the Future Movement politicians decided that they were going to support a hybrid proposal and reject any law fully based on proportional representation, also just like they did in 2013. Geagea supported the hybrid proposal, just like he did in 2013. While reiterating its rejection of a new extension of the parliament's term, Hezbollah renewed its call for an electoral law "fully based on proportional representation and a single electoral district or several large electorates."….just like 2013.
Meanwhile, just like 2013, the Kataeb and the PSP were panicking at the sight of the word "proportionality", with Jumblatt engaging in late-night tweets hinting on how proportional representation is anti-Taef, which is a well-known defense mechanism used by Lebanese politicians in times of political isolation. Taef mentions nothing about about proportional representation or parliamentary electoral laws, except the fact that the 50/50 Christian-Muslim ratio should be safeguarded until a senate is established. So Jumblatt, just like 2013, was sticking with the 1960 (2008) law.
And instead of pressuring Lebanon's lawmakers by staying in Lebanon to oversee the electoral law talks, President Aoun decided that it was enough to threaten them with a parliamentary vacancy and took the decision to visit Egypt and Jordan in what is arguably the most critical time of his beginning mandate. Even Mikati was still endorsing the law his government drafted and proposed in the summer of 2013.
It's as if Lebanese politicians robbed us of 4 years of representation (via the two parliamentary extensions) with the alibi of finding a new electoral law before deciding at the last-minute that they were going to ignore all that.
A pro-Hezbollah president
While Frangieh and Bassil had found a new place where their new rivalry would thrive (the electoral law), the Lebanese President was taking March 8-oriented stances for the first time since has was elected: On the 3rd of February, he urged the international community to facilitate the return of refugees in coordination with the Syrian authorities by establishing safe zones (something Hezbollah has also recently endorsed), and on the 12th of February, he said that Hezbollah's arms complement, rather than contradict, the Lebanese Army. That statement was not only huge (it's probably the first time in 10 years that a Lebanese President takes such an official pro-Hezbollah stance), it surprisingly went *unnoticed* among the March 14 leadership, with none of the key politicians of that coalition massively criticizing the President for what he said.
What was even more surprising than the President's statement, is the fact that *the March 14 parties* spent those two first two weeks praising Hezbollah's flexibility on the electoral law while also doing the IMPOSSIBLE (Machnouk saying he's not in confrontation with Aoun) to make sure that the ties with the President are still intact (Hariri also ruling out any rift with Aoun). "preserving the coalition between Future Bloc and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) was more precious than losing some seats in the parliament". We had to wait for the 14th of February commemoration of the assassination of his Rafic Hariri for the Prime Minister to comment on Aoun's remarks, and while Hariri had basically no political choice but to criticize Hezbollah's arms (especially on that particular day), he did not directly mention the presidency's recent statements, leaving us with this indirect and weak message "We've made concessions to preserve stability but we won't bargain over the STL, our stance on the Assad regime, illegal arms or Hizbullah's involvement in Syria". There is definitely a deal to keep things calm in Lebanese politics right now: Just as comparison, two years ago (in 2015), also on his 14th of February speech, Hariri said the" intervention in Syria is insanity and Hezbollah has brought this insanity to Lebanon" and "Tying the Golan Heights to south Lebanon is insanity as well".
NO ALLIANCES = NO ELECTORAL LAW.
La Morale? The March 8 and March 14 alliances are officially dead. No one wants to turn against the new President (not when he can block government formations and bring governments down), and the resulting dismantling of Lebanon's mainstream alliances is turning the new electoral law discussions into a chaotic battlefield. For the past few decades, it was Lebanon's majority alliances that dictated the rules of elections. Now that the alliances are unclear and we just don't know where the parties stand, every one of those parties is working on its own to secure the implementation of an electoral law that only serves its interests. Parties, by themselves, cannot turn their draft proposals into official laws. Stable coalitions, on the other hand, could actually make a draft electoral proposal (that actually helps its stay in power) official by voting for it or at least negotiate with another coalition on a common ground. It's easier for two sides to negotiate on something than having 27 parties discussing 2727 electoral law formats. So as long as the Lebanese parties do not form clear coalitions, it will be very difficult for them to agree on an electoral law.
Michel Aoun's path to the presidency progressively brought down the March 8 and March 14 coalitions, and in a way, made the process of finding a consensual electoral law harder than it was to find a consensual President in 2014. It's valentine in Lebanese politics this month, but the fact that everyone is loving everyone right now is ironically making it harder to agree on something as controversial as an electoral law.
Another possible theory, as I said four months ago, is that there might be a secret part of the presidential deal to extend the parliament's term one more time or to keep the "1960" law in place.
Right now, and without any new electoral law to oversee the elections happening in three months, two scenarios seem very likely: Either the parliament passes a new parliamentary extension (because two parliamentary extensions are too mainstream), or we head to elections under the 2008 ("1960") law. Translation? We were robbed of four years of political representation by our politicians thieves.
Don't forget to make sure your voting registration information is correct so you can vote this May!
This was the 27th post in a series of bimonthly posts covering developments in Lebanese politics. This post is about the months of January and (the first two weeks of ) February 2017.
Posted in Bimonthly analysis post, Lebanese Politics, Michel Aoun, Politics on February 15, 2017 by Ramez Dagher. 5 Comments
Berri on Aoun in WikiLeaks
Image source – National news Agency
This is the 21st post in a series of monthly posts covering (forgotten/ignored) WikiLeaks cables about Lebanon.
There were many shocking political events in Lebanon during 2016, but between Geagea's alliance with Aoun, Hariri's endorsement of Frangieh, Frangieh's rivalry with Aoun, Hariri's endorsement of Aoun and Aoun's decision to share power with Hariri, a very important political developement went unnoticed in the mainstream media, and was probably at the center of all of the previous political maneuvers: The dynamism of the Berri and Aoun's political ties.
Since President Aoun and Speaker Berri are now (by law) the two most important politicians of the country, and since they're supposed to be allies (remember the March 8 alliance?), but apparently aren't (since Berri was the only major Lebanese politician not to vote for Aoun in the 31st of October's presidential election), this month's WikiLeaks cable I'm sharing is a 9 year-old one about the 2007 presidential election. In the cable, speaker Berri awkwardly says that "Michel Aoun had the right to be president", that "Aoun could not just be cut out of the negotiations", that "the majority of Christians are with Aoun", that isolating Aoun "would be like leaving a cat alone in a room by itself", that "he knows Aoun is irrational", while also noting "his personal dislike of Aoun", and "saying Aoun was not his ally but an ally of Hizballah".
So yeah, this conversation kind of… sums up what awkwardly happened 9 years later… right?
I only kept the relevant parts of the cable that are about Berri and Aoun. Enjoy:
LEBANON: A/S WELCH WARNS BERRI TO HOLD ELECTION
2007 December 21, 15:46 (Friday)
AOUN CANNOT BE IGNORED
16. (C) Berri said "all Lebanese are now behind Michel Sleiman," but Aoun had the right to be president because the strongest representative of the Shia held the Speaker's position, the strongest of the Sunni would hold the prime minister's seat (referring to Saad Hariri), and under this logic, Michel Aoun, the leader of the Christian party with the largest number of seats in parliament, should be President. He noted that the largest party in parliament is Saad Hariri's Future Party, followed by Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, then Berri's Amal party, then Hizballah. He added that Aoun's party controlled 20 of the 64 seats allotted to Christians; therefore, Aoun could not just be cut out of the negotiations.
17. (C) Berri also thought that A/S Welch's visit to Lebanon on December 15 and 16 was a "snub" to Aoun, highlighting the fact that A/S Welch is perceived to have purposely avoided a meeting with Aoun, because A/S Welch visited Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, but not Aoun. In Berri's view, the majority of Christians are with Aoun, and in the future Sleiman would be the only man able to challenge Aoun's popularity. He noted that many Christians left Aoun's party after he signed his pact with Hizballah, but these Christians did not cross over and join Geagea's party, because the Christians know that Geagea is a "criminal."
18. (C) A/S Welch stated that "Aoun is a problem," adding maybe it is Aoun's ambition or the support he receives from outsiders that persuades him to act as irrationally as he does. A/S Welch continued that most politicians can be reasoned with if there is a disagreement between two parties, and that a solution can ultimately be reached, but that such a scenario was impossible with Aoun. "How do you deal with Aoun?" he asked Berri. Berri said that the key was for A/S Welch to visit Aoun. Berri continued that isolating Aoun "would be like leaving a cat alone in a room by itself." DAPNSA Abrams replied that nothing comes out of a Aoun visit. A/S Welch said that he would not meet with Aoun, but that Ambassador Feltman would upon his return. A/S Welch added that Berri was a skilled politician, and that he should leave Aoun behind.
19. (C) Berri lamented that he could not leave Aoun behind because Aoun is an ally of Hizballah, and Hizballah will only deal with March 14 through its interlocutor, Aoun. He said that March 8 decided to make Aoun its negotiator to give him the ability to take credit for a possible solution. He confided to A/S Welch that he knows Aoun is irrational. Berri also noted his personal dislike of Aoun, saying Aoun was not his ally but an ally of Hizballah. He highlighted the fact that Aoun voted against him for the speaker's position and tried to convince other Christians in parliament to do the same (Note: Berri also revealed that Aoun admitted to him that his insistence on a two-year mandate for Sleiman was only a bargaining chip to secure other concessions. End Note.) He told A/S Welch that he reached out to Ambassador Feltman for help on dealing with Aoun and that if A/S Welch talked with Aoun, he would feel more accepted and less like an outsider.
20. (C) A/S Welch reiterated his belief that Aoun would not lead March 8 anywhere. Berri then asked A/S Welch to ask Hariri to speak to Aoun, which A/S Welch said he do. A/S BEIRUT 00001985 004 OF 004 Welch noted that if Berri really wanted to move things along, he would use his influence over Hizballah to influence Aoun, who is a "nobody" without Hizballah's support. Berri said he held no such influence over Hizballah and that Aoun's power comes from his own popularity amongst the Christians,
FRENCH EFFORTS
21. (C) Lastly, Berri asked A/S Welch about the Paris donors' meeting for the Palestinian Authority (PA) and inquired whether or not France would be in contact with Syria in order to find a solution to the current political crisis. A/S Welch said that the French did not think they could succeed working with the Syrians any longer. A/S Welch added that the French were very disappointed with the results of their efforts, referring to the now dead French initiative. A/S Welch noted that French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was very disappointed at the outcome and that he personally blamed Syria.
22. (U) A/S Welch has not cleared this cable.
Posted in Lebanese Politics, Michel Aoun, Nabih Berri, Politics, The WikiLebanon Files, WikiLeaks on November 14, 2016 by Ramez Dagher.
President Aoun: The Morning After
Lebanon's newly-elected president Michel Aoun (C) gives a speech next to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (R) as he takes an oath after he was elected at the Lebanese parliament in downtown Beirut on October 31, 2016. (Photo by AFP)
In case you missed how three years of micro-maneuvering led to a Aoun presidency, check this summary of the past three years of presidential politics.
Now that Michel Aoun is elected president and that the excessive excitement in the mainstream media is calming dow, it would be interesting to see what the FPM founder's election means in order to see where we might head next.
A humiliating election
Lebanon's parliament finally convened on the 31st of October 2016, and while it elected Aoun president, it did it in a humiliating way: Michel Aoun needed only two votes (he got 84 out of the required 86) to win from the first round and that means that many PSP and FM MPs refused to vote for him. While indeed many FM politicians publicly opposed Hariri's Aoun endorsement (indicating that there might be a rift in the Future Movement because of Aoun's endorsement), Hariri and Jumblatt did not also pressure their blocs a lot to vote for the General, probably to deny Aoun the luxury of winning from the first round and the extra legitimacy the president could have enjoyed had he won the 2/3 of the votes of the parliament (the 86 votes). Anyway, we'll know for sure who's still a Haririst and who's not after the nomination of the prime minister (first week of November)
To make things even more humiliating for the President, the two votes that denied Aoun the win from the first round were votes for "Myriam Klink" and "Gilberte Zouein".
Not humiliating enough? the second round was repeated two times because there was an extra ballot casted twice (128 votes counted instead of 127), which delayed the process of Aoun's election (he was elected on the fourth round after the second and third were canceled), and made the parliament electing Aoun look like a classroom.
A loss for Hariri
As much as it was a humiliating process for the FPM leader, electing Aoun was a defeat for Hariri because he has lost (in the vacant presidency) a key negotiating card with the FPM, and although he is (probably) coming as prime minister under Aoun, he's going to have to fight for his place in the next parliamentary election, especially if he's on his own and a proportional law is implemented. He did after all endorse Hezbollah's candidate, and that isn't really appealing to his Sunni electorate: You can already see from now a possible Rifi-Mikati alliance forming in Tripoli to dethrone Hariri in the North. Perhaps Hariri was forced to take this path of endorsing Aoun, partially because of Amal's stances in the summer, and while he might have successfully taken the speaker down with him and unified March 14 (behind Aoun) in the process while trying to disturb the Amal-Hezbollah-FPM trio, he weakened himself before the scheduled parliamentary election (with no electoral law pre-agreed on), and has prematurely abandoned his negotiating card – especially since there was no agreement on a parliamentary extension -at least not publicly. As president, Michel Aoun can directly control and block the formation of the cabinet, and with no agreement on that either, Hariri is going to struggle to form his government, and will have to pay the price – sooner or later – with Lebanon's political elite but also with his electorate for going forward with a Aoun nomination without having any guarantees – not even anything about Hezbollah's involvement in Syria: What are they going to write in the ministerial declaration? What about Hezbollah's intervention in Syria and Hariri's disapproval of it? Who gets the key ministries? Hariri mentioned a settlement in his endorsement speech of Aoun, but electing Aoun without clarifying every microscopical detail about what happens next – a la Doha agreement – would be a major rookie mistake.
Unless there was a hidden agreement between Lebanon's political elite that the next parliamentary election would be postponed or that the election would be held under the 2008 (= "1960") law. That would be the only way Hariri doesn't lose by endorsing Aoun, since he would have exchanged the presidency with both the electoral law and the premiership. Such a deal is fair for all the sides of the political spectrum (except the Kataeb – who have been bracing themselves for this moment since June), and means that the status quo is going to prevail even though a new president will be in Baabda. While I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories, keeping the 1960 electoral law in place was apparently requested by Hariri when he decided to endorse Frangieh in 2015 (according to Frangieh, who also said he refused it), and there is absolutely no reason for this "secret clause" not to be part of the Hariri endorsement of Aoun. Plus, why change the parliamentary electoral law when you're in power? There are no ethics in Lebanese politics, and this is something that isn't changing anytime soon.
Not so difficult to implement such a hidden agreement: Stalling and "sacrifices"
If there's something Lebanese politicians excel at, it's procrastinating when it comes to the government formation and staying several months trying to distribute the ministerial shares in the Lebanese government. In 2014, a governmental formation process that was supposed to take 33 days, took 333 days, and the result was postponing the parliamentary election because the caretaker government was not ready or (as some might argue) even eligible to organize elections. That's exactly what might be happening right now: In his endorsement speech of Aoun, Hariri said that standing behind Aoun was a sacrifice, while in his 23rd of October speech, Nasrallah also used the same word ("sacrifice") when he said Hezbollah was OK with a Aoun presidency .
In other words, what you saw in the last 10 days of October was Hezbollah and the FM already trying to negotiate the governmental formation by trying to cancel out what the other party has gained in the Aoun-Hariri settlement. That means there is no apparent roadmap for what happens next, and that the government formation – let alone the ministerial declaration – might take ages, especially that the composition of the March 8 and the March 14 alliances is not really the same as 2009 (more on that afterwards): Where does Aoun stand? What about Berri? Where is Geagea? Does he get to nominate the deputy PM as the second in command of the Christian opposition? Who's in the minority? Who's the majority? Is Berri in the opposition? What are the shares for every party? Who gets more seats? March 8 or March 14? And What is March 8 and March 14 anyway?
Those few questions can be enough to postpone/ transfer the political deadlock from the presidential vacancy to the governmental formation, and, in the process, either cancel June's parliamentary election (and extend the parliament's term) or head to elections under the 1960 law.
March 8 and 14: RIP
Perhaps the most important thing about Aoun's election is that the majority and the opposition can no longer be grouped into the "March 8" and "March 14" etiquettes. How Aoun will manage to force into the same government coalition the FM, the FPM, Hezbollah, and the LF is beyond me, and while the Kataeb, Frangieh, Mikati and Rifi are the potential backbones of the Aoun opposition, they have really nothing – emphasis on the word "nothing" – in common, making it even easier for Aoun to maneuver within his possible ruling coalition. Where the PSP and Amal are going to stand is still a mystery, although they will probably form an annoying duo opposing Aoun from within the ruling coalition , especially that if they decide to stay in the opposition, an FM-LF-FPM-Hezbollah alliance could literally win every (and when I say "every" here, I mean it) district in elections under the 1960 law. It's also probably one of the reasons why Berri panicked at the idea of the Hariri-Aoun partnership in the first place. We'll have a better idea on where we might be heading regarding the government formation after Hariri gets named Prime Minister in the first week of November.
For the Kataeb's politicians, this might be the beginning of the end, a moment they have been bracing themselves for since June 2016. With their very public opposition to the Aounist presidency, they declared an (inevitable) political war on the LF-FPM alliance, one they can't win in the parliamentary election – except for the Metn district.
What's after Aoun?
The awkward alliance between the Lebanese Forces and the Free Patriotic Movement has fulfilled its first purpose: The one of electing Aoun president. But for how long will the LF accept to be the minor partner of the FPM? And who would succeed Aoun as the Christian Zaim after the general retires? According to common sense, Geagea has the seniority, but would the FPM president (Gebran Bassil) accept to give Geagea the supremacy? And if he does, how will Hezbollah react? And if there truly is a hidden agreement to extend the parliament's term, how will the LF be "rewarded"? And wasn't the point of their alliance with the FPM to control as much seats as possible in the next parliamentary elections? What if the elections are postponed?
While the FPM-LF alliance is slowly becoming similar the creepy Hezbollah-Amal alliance (who are "allies" despite disagreeing on almost everything), a lot of questions will have to be answered in the coming months. And lots of questions means lots of problems.
Military leaders and bright sides?
Before he was a politician, Michel Aoun was commander of the army. And as Lebanese President, he succeeds another commander of the army, Michel Sleiman, who had previously succeeded 8 years ago yet another commander of the army. When Aoun finishes his term in 2022, Lebanon would have spent 24 consecutive years with a former General as its head of state, setting (I would even say: enforcing) a dangerous precedent: If the past 15 years in Lebanese politics have tought us anything, it's that military commanders fail at being successful head of states. Aoun, however, is the first president since Taef to actually come from a political party, and is also the first president since ages to actually have a parliamentary bloc behind him as well as allies in the parliament, so perhaps his rule might be different after all.
There is nothing democratic about the 2016 Lebanese presidential election. The president will stay till 2022, and was elected by the parliament of 2009. Everyone who wasn't 21 at the time didn't participate in the electoral process, and that means that anyone aged 33 or less would have had no say about who rules from Baabda Palace in 2022. And even those who indirectly elected the president by electing in 2009 the parliament that chose him, they picked their representatives in a completely different context: They voted for one of two coalitions that were completely different at the time, in a completely different regional and local context: There was no Syrian Civil War at the time, no Arab Spring, no ISIS. Hezbollah was still fighting Israel, not fighting Israel and in Syria. March 8 and March 14 had only tried to rule together once, between 2008 and 2009, not three times (2008-2009, 2009-2011, 2014-2016). There was no trash crisis, no garbage protests, no alternative political group back then. Moreover, you can't deny quorum until the parliament elects you, and then come back to say your election was democratic. Especially if the current parliament that elected you as president is unconstitutional in the first place (and I'm quoting the constitutional council here)
And I haven't even started criticizing the new president (he might sue me 😛 ).
If Aoun's election proved anything, it's that Lebanon is still stuck in its Civil War past and consensual present, and will stay there for the next 6 years.
Posted in Lebanese Politics, Michel Aoun, Monthly Presidential Coverage, Politics, Presidential Elections on November 1, 2016 by Ramez Dagher. 1 Comment
How Michel Aoun Became the President
On the 31st of October, Michel Aoun has been declared Lebanon's 13th president after gaining a simple majority in the second round of voting in Monday's highly-anticipated presidential election in Parliament, putting an end to the country's 2-1/2 year vacuum. The Change and Reform bloc leader and founder of the Free Patriotic Movement initially received 84 votes, only two less needed to win the first round to become president. In the second round, he secured 83 votes in his favor, 18 more than the 65 votes needed for a simple majority. The second round was repeated twice after an extra vote – 128 instead of 127 – appeared for a second time in the counting process.
With the end of the longest presidential vacancy in the history of the republic, I am summing up more than 25 posts of political commentary I wrote over the past three years about the Lebanese presidential election, in order to try and understand the recent developments that led to the election of Michel Aoun as Lebanese president.
Three years ago, If anyone had said that the Lebanese parliament was going to elect the FPM founder, Michel Aoun, as Lebanese president, he would have been called either an enthusiastic Aounist or a bad mathematician.
Three years ago , If anyone had also said that the Lebanese parliament was going to elect the FPM founder, Michel Aoun, as Lebanese president, with a consensual green light coming from Hezbollah, the Lebanese Forces, the Future Movement, and the PSP, he would have been called mad.
But Lebanese politics is weird, and three years were enough to change the entire landscape of the Lebanese political spectrum.
In fact, there was absolutely no possible/mathematical way for Michel Aoun to become president in 2014. He was the candidate of the March 8 alliance (M8) and the Civil War enemy of Samir Geagea, the March 14 alliance (M14)'s candidate. While March 14 (Future Movement, Lebanese Forces, Kataeb) was not exactly in a position to win the presidency, with the centrists (PSP/Mikati bloc) not fans of both candidates, Michel Aoun did not have what it took to make it to Baabda palace: You need 65 votes to become president, and March 8 (Amal, Hezbollah, FPM, Marada) had no more than 57. And with the parliamentary election postponed from June 2013 to November 2014, there was no way for the FPM to win back the parliament in order to reach the 65 MPs mark before Michel Sleiman leaves office on the 25th of May 2014. It was mathematically impossible, and a deal including a centrist president after seven or eight months of a presidential vacancy – just like what happened in Doha in 2008 – was expected to be the final settlement. But the FPM had other ideas, and started a political maneuver that lasted more than two and a half years.
The first round: April 2014
In April 2014, and after Samir Geagea rallied the March 14 alliance behind him, he expected to face-off Michel Aoun in parliament, especially that there was no reason for March 8 to boycott the session and deny quorum: Unlike 2007, when March 14 still included the PSP, had the majority of votes and could have won the election if March 8 did not deny quorum (the 2/3 of the parliament's MPs, which is 86 votes), this time the PSP and March 14 were on each on their own, and no candidate had what it took to win from the first round (86 votes, the 2/3 of the parliament) or even the other rounds (65 votes to win). But the FPM made an unexpected move: On the 23rd of April 2014, the March 8 coalition voted white in the first round. There were reports that M8 might vote for Emile Rahme in the election, in order to give the impression that Aoun – who refused to run against Geagea – is a moderate while on the other hand making sure that Geagea couldn't be one. But instead of proposing Emile Rahme to face Geagea, they decided to be more original and vote white. With Geagea getting less votes (48) than white ballots (52), the FPM had successfully humiliated Geagea in parliament and it was only a matter of time before Geagea's name would not be taken seriously – at least in his own alliance: If there's anything more humiliating than losing the election, it's losing the election to no one.
The first slow wait: May 2014 – November 2014
The first round was a vote just for show anyway: It couldn't have been taken seriously as Hariri, the leader of Geagea's March 14 coalition, did not even attend it. That went relatively unnoticed back then, but one year and a half later, those small details would prove to be extremely relevant.
As Michel Sleiman left office on the 25th of May 2014, M8 was already using the same tactics it has used in the 2007 presidential elections: By denying quorum to the presidential election sessions, Hezbollah's allies were making sure that M14 would not reign in a president of its own. The expected presidential vacancy eventually happened, and Lebanon, much more used to the deadlock than 2007, didn't really complain about its politicians not doing anything to end the deadlock. And unlike 2007 (when the March 14 alliance was in power and the March 8 one was in the opposition), the government that ruled in the president's stead was a consensual one, which meant that March 8 wasn't really hasty about electing a president in order to change the cabinet. The FPM was the only major Christian party in the government – giving them legitimacy in the Christian arena – and March 8 had the blocking third in the cabinet, making Hezbollah comfortable regarding the official Lebanese government opinion towards the Syrian civil war. In fact, M8 wasn't hasty at all to elect the president: Hezbollah was engaged in the Syrian civil war, and needed his Christian ally more than ever. The FPM's allies were comfortable in government, so it was not the time to abandon Aoun in favor of a consensual candidate, especially that the commander of the army, Jean Kahwagi, was rumored to be Hezbollah's "hidden candidate". Switching sides would mean that Hezbollah never intended to vote for Aoun anyway, and could have shattered the March 8 alliance. There was no rush to reach a compromise, that's if March 8 ever wanted to reach a compromise in the first place.
So the presidential vacancy stayed even tough everyone was micro-maneuvering:
In June 2014, the leader of the FPM made a major strategic mistake by suggesting that he – alongside Hariri and Nasrallah – represented a triangle of salvation that could not be broken up. Naturally, March 14 would start the Summer of 2014 with an original propaganda : "Aoun wanted to give up the 50-50 Christian-Muslim representation in exchange of his election as president."So in July 2014, Aoun, who had previously spent a whole year getting closer to the Future Movement while trying to fashion himself as a consensual, all-embracing candidate, suddenly decided – and probably because of the M14 June maneuver – that it wasn't worth it anymore, and threw in a political bomb: He wanted to amend the constitution and let the president be elected by universal suffrage.
And that was only the beginning: Over the next few months of the presidential vacancy, all hell broke loose in Lebanese politics, with every Lebanese political party trying to take advantage of the deadlock and the vacancy. The FPM were probably waiting till the November 2014 parliamentary election in order to try to win back the majority of the parliament except – plot twist – the parliamentary election got postponed once again as the majority of the parliamentary blocs realized it was too risky and unwise to change the status quo.
The second slow(er) wait: December 2014 – October 2015
In the last month of 2014, Hezbollah and the Future Movement decided to have a dialogue. As soon as the rumors started, everyone panicked: In January 2015, Aoun agreed to sit with Geagea (and even tasted his truffles), Geagea agreed to support Aoun (if certain conditions were met), and Jumblatt decided – via Wael Abou Faour – to preemptively mark his electoral territory. And while Hezbollah's attack on an Israeli military convoy in the occupied Shebaa Farms that same month changed the subject in the Lebanese political discourse from the presidential election to Hezbollah and the FM's rivalry as if it was 2009, a new development had happened by the month of May 2015:
The commander of the army's term was supposed to end in September 2015, and it was time to find a replacement. For Michel Aoun, March 8's presidential candidate, the name of the next General in charge of the LAF mattered even more: His son-in-law, Shamel Roukoz, headed at the time the army's special forces (The Maghawir) and was a serious candidate for the post. So when The FM and the PSP realized how badly their Christian rival wanted the post, they played it smart. Instead of vetoing the appointment, they outmaneuvered Aoun by accepting the nomination. But giving Roukoz the green light came at a price: The FM insisted on naming Roukoz commander after the presidential election, making it a difficult task for Aoun to accept that deal: What if the next president didn't want Roukoz to lead the army? It was a risky prospect for Aoun. Anyway, the month of May 2015 ends with the hope of implementing a settlement including a Aoun withdrawal from the presidential race and a Roukoz appointment in the army.
In June 2015, and for the first time since 2005, Michel Aoun and Samir Geagea met without having to shoot at one another like the good old days of the late eighties. After 6 months of speculation, the FPM and the LF finally agreed on a "declaration of intent", which was basically an agreement to agree on an agreement between the two parties. The symbolism of the meeting was however very important: Both leaders insisted to protect the Christian interests, and at their core, the election of a strong president (a "strong president" = Aoun and /or Geagea). At the time, it didn't look as if a new pseudo-alliance between the LF and the FPM was genuinely starting: It looked more like the consensual candidate – Roukoz deal was being put off the table, At least for a while. And with a temporarily weakened Kataeb in a succession period, one can only imagine the impact an FPM-LF pseudo-alliance might have on Lebanese politics.
In July 2015, Aoun wanted the cabinet to discuss the commander of the army's appointment early on in order to avoid any deal that could be forced upon him in September 2015. For a little over than a month – empowered by the newly signed declaration of intent – Aoun took it upon himself to launch the most aggressive political maneuver of 2015: He called for demonstrations and tried to prove that he is the most popular leader. He also played the sectarian card by saying that Salam was abusing his powers in his refusal to discuss the appointment of a new commander of the army: So when Bassil told the PM that he was the President in the absence of a President during a cabinet session, it was clear that it was going to end badly in the executive power: The pressure and paralysis in the government eventually led to rumors that the Prime Minister was going to resign. In the end, Salam didn't resign and the Aounists didn't appoint Roukoz as commander, but the FPM's July jockeying will be remembered as a major turning point in Lebanese presidential politics during 2015.
Weakened by his failed July maneuver and by an expected succession crisis in his party, Michel Aoun suffered a major blow on the 6th of August 2015 when defense minister Samir Mokbel signed a decree to postpone the retirement of Army Commander General Jean Kahwaji. The move to throw Roukoz outside the army command and to isolate Aoun in the government was humiliating yet there was still one, and only one (fast) way left for Aoun to vacate the army command before the summer of 2016 (when Kahwagi's new term expires): Agree to make Kahwagi president, which would leave room in the army command to bring in Roukoz. Deep down, March 14's maneuver of extending Kahwagi's term wasn't necessary about ending any chance of striking a deal with the FPM. It was might have actually been their way of enforcing one.
By the second week of August 2015, Lebanon had turned into a dumpster and in September 2015, while the protests were still ongoing to pressure the cabinet to solve the trash crisis, Lebanon was witnessing two important developments regarding the FPM: Gebran Bassil became the leader of the party, and Chamel Roukoz was thrown out of the army for good, raising several important questions: Can the FPM nominate Roukoz instead of Aoun to the presidency? What would that make of Bassil? The FPM also started changing their discourse into a more "Christian rights" – based one: The whole "reforming the system and rooting out corruption from within" wasn't working so much anymore, especially with the recent waves of anti-government protests.
Frangieh the Second? (November – December 2015)
By the month of November 2015, the Future Movement hinted that they might endorse Sleiman Frangieh, the second-in-command among March 8's Christian parties and a long-term ally of the Syrian regime as their presidential candidate. As you can expect, the Christian parties panicked: Frangieh had the right family name, the international support, enough "Christian legitimacy" (he's one of the Maronite Four), and support from three powerful Muslim parties across the political spectrum.
The Christian wedding and its aftermath (January 2016 – May 2016)
Frangieh's candidacy was a Hariri maneuver to blow up M8: the election of Frangieh as president was a better alternative for Hezbollah than Aoun. He's younger, far more pro-Syrian than Aoun and closer to Berri and Jumblatt. The goal of the Hariri maneuver was to tempt Hezbollah to choose Frangieh instead of Aoun and blow up the March 8 alliance in the process. What Hariri didn't think of, however, is that it was also political declaration of war on his M14 ally and (former) presidential candidate, Samir Geagea. Frangieh, for the LF, is the worst candidate that the FM could ever endorse. He is at the heart of March 8, will directly threaten Geagea's stronger base in the North, and – while being one of the Maronite four – is not even the top Christian politician of March 8. So you can imagine the humiliation the LF went through when Hariri endorsed Frangieh . The consequences were brutal:
On the 18th of January 2016, Samir Geagea, of March 14's Lebanese Forces, endorsed Michel Aoun, of March 8's FPM, as his presidential candidate. For the first time in decades, the biggest two representative parties among Christians had agreed on a major issue. The endorsement of Aoun by Geagea was definitely an "eye for an eye" maneuver regarding Hariri's endorsement of Frangieh. But the new mini-alliance between the two Christian parties was also more than that: It made Geagea the second-in-command of a Christian alliance whose leader is 81 year old, and who cannot constitutionally run for a second-term in six years. And while Bassil might be a natural "heir" to Aoun's presidency, he is – until further notice– far less popular than Geagea (having lost twice in a row the parliamentary election in his home district against Geagea's candidate) who will also have the seniority. If Aoun was going to make it through, Geagea was also likely going to be his successor. True, it was not written in their agreement, but it was a natural result of the deal. The Lebanese Forces, after 11 years in parliament, had realized that they cannot defeat Aoun on their own, even with the full weight of a 40 MPs FM-led bloc. Geagea never had the support of March 8 and the center, lost the Kataeb's support early on, and was now Future Movement-less. The LF had lost the presidential battle: That was clearer in January, than it ever was or will ever be. And this is why they had opted to support Aoun's candidacy. It was a long-term investment that could definitely be worth the wait. For Aoun, the endorsement of Geagea was a huge moral boost, but still had little impact whatsoever because of the small bloc the LF have in parliament. Even with the full support of the entire March 8 alliance and the Lebanese Forces, Aoun would have barely reached the 65 MPs mark, and as it turned out, he did not have the full support of the March 8 alliance: Over the next few months of February 2016, March 2016 and April 2016, Berri slowly hinted and eventually publicly said that he would not vote for Aoun, even with the Christian (LF-FPM) consensus on the FPM leader's name and with the consequences (the Kataeb's move to resign from government) that alliance had on the May 2016 municipal election.
It would also have not been wise for Aoun to make it to Baabda with a Sunni (FM) and Druze (FPM) veto on his name. Aoun knew that he had to win the FM and the PSP somehow, but his name was still too controversial for both Hariri and Jumblatt to support especially that Berri wasn't even on board: It would mean Hezbollah's official candidate had won the presidential election, without even the support of Hezbollah's other allies.
So while no one had realized it back then, the key to a Aoun presidency was giving the impression that Berri was on board.
Berri's strategic mistake and Hariri's last maneuver (June 2016 – October 2016)
So when Berri gave hints, right after his agreement with Bassil on the oil dossier in June 2016, that he was willing to accept a Aoun presidency as part of a bigger deal (He called it "السلة المتكاملة", which literally means "the complete basket"), he indirectly suggested a possible deal that also included a Hariri premiership and a consensual electoral law (package deal confirmed by Nasrallah's speech in August, that also included Berri as speaker). Berri's "blessing" meant two things:
Hariri would be seen in the mainstream media as the one preventing the election of a Lebanese president and a Aoun presidency in particular – going against the candidate of the de-facto Christian majority – which would discredit him and sabotage his alliance with the LF even more.
Hariri would also be blocking something that was going to eventually happen, since Aoun no longer had a relative majority in parliament, but around 65 MPs.Check this table to see how Aoun became close to the 65 MP mark once M8 (including Berri) and the LF became on his side:
Berri (and all of us) probably thought that Hariri would try to block the Aoun presidency for some time, and then eventually come back with a package deal that probably doesn't have a Aoun presidency in it but instead other electoral law benefits to the entire M8 alliance, hence ending the presidential crisis by weakening the FPM within March 8 but reinforcing March 8 on the national level.
Hariri was supposed to say no to a Aoun presidency, at least with no clear road-map with what was going to happen with the governmental formation and the electoral law. It was unwise toexchange a 9 month-term premiership with a 6 year term presidency, without a clear plan about an electoral law or a parliamentary election. There were too much unknown variables to have a presidency deal, and Berri's maneuver was his way of reducing the FPM/LF pressure on Amal (the FPM were boycotting the cabinet and the dialogue sessions) to elect Aoun president by throwing all the blame on Hariri.
However, by the 17th of September 2016, the media was buzzing with rumors that Hariri was surprisingly going to endorse Aoun as his presidential candidate. While it wasn't clear where the rumors originated from (an FM MP said that very same week that Aoun wasn't an independent president and that he doesn't represent the Christian's public opinion), Berri panicked, and said that he preferred Frangieh over Aoun. Now that it was obvious that Berri wasn't willing to vote for Aoun even if Hariri endorsed him, the FM leader started one of his smartest maneuvers since November 2015: He began hinting that Michel Aoun was indeed an option, causing further panic in the Amal camp. According to reports, Berri was willing to accept "half a package deal" involving "an agreement on the electoral law, the finance minister post, creating an oil ministry and retaking the energy ministry portfolio."
There was no Aoun presidency in Berri's half-package deal – at least in the press reports, which might have made Hariri realize that he could harass Berri and sabotage the March 8 alliance by circulating the name of Aoun as next president: By the 30th of September, Aoun was meeting with Hariri (yes, that escalated quickly). Berri tried to mask his strategic political faux-pas and tried to hide his Aoun veto by saying in that week that "he has no personal dispute with any candidate", but it was already too late, and soon enough, Frangieh was vowing to stay in the race despite everything, as Berri's sources still said that he would never nominate Aoun.
When rumors of Hariri endorsing Aoun become even more relevant, Berri did something he never does: He used the sectarian card, and accused the FPM and the FM of making a deal behind his back and going back to the "Sunni-Christian duality era". The FPM however had the momentum both in the political arena (via Hariri's meetings) and on the ground, via the 13 October anniversary protest. The FPM leaders, real experts in using the sectarian card, smoothly stopped Berri's "you are turning back on Shias" rants by…not escalating.
It was already too late for anything anyway. Hariri had already figured out his master plan: In fact, Berri was trying to throw all the vacancy blame on Hariri, so when Hariri was sure (probably by the end of September) that Berri wasn't on board with the Aoun presidency even with Hariri's approval, and that he was going to deal with the media pressure that he was the one who was blocking the Christian consensus on Aoun, the former prime minister conceded the defeat (endorsing Aoun, Hezbollah's official candidate, is after all a loss for Hariri) but came up with his brilliant maneuver of endorsing Aoun on the 20th of October 2016 in order to minimize theconsequences of his loss :
By endorsing Aoun without the consent of Berri and without the blessing of Hezbollah, Hariri basically reunited the two main cores of M14 (the FM and the LF) under the banner of Michel Aoun.
With a very high-ranking March 8 official such as Michel Aoun in the presidency, Hariri can more easily secure the premiership for himself as he is the leader of the March 14 coalition.
Hariri can get a better deal afterwards, and he'll be getting concessions mainly from Hezbollah and Amal since his endorsement of Aoun would put the FPM leader in the center of the Lebanese political game, as Aoun – with Hariri and Geagea's endorsements – would ironically have as much or even more M14 MPs than M8 MPs by his side.
Hariri tried to shatter the March 8 alliance by handing the presidency to Aoun and leaving Hezbollah in the middle trying to mediate between Amal and the FPM. The FM suddenly became closer to all of the Christian parties (of whom he endorsed three figures: Frangieh, Geagea, and Aoun), while also making Amal and the Marada clash with the FPM and Hezbollah.
March 8's response to Hariri's "forking"
In a way, Hariri tried to do the same maneuver he did to Hezbollah and Frangieh in November 2015, except this time he did it to Berri and Aoun. By throwing his entire weight behind Michel Aoun (without Amal supporting Aoun), Hariri expected two responses from Hezbollah:
Hezbollah postponing the presidential election until a settlement is reached between Amal and Aoun and a package deal is agreed upon (at least within March 8). That would discredit Hezbollah in the Christian arena, push the FPM towards the FM, and prove right a 12 year-old "legend" circulated by the March 14 mainstream media that Aoun was never Hezbollah's candidate and that Hezbollah was secretly instructing Berri to side against Aoun in order to indirectly block the election of the FPM's Zaim.
Hezbollah going forward with the Aoun presidency and voting for Michel Aoun as president in the very first electoral session (October 31st), regardless of Amal's veto. That would cause problems between Amal and Hezbollah and split the Shiite "base" of the March 8 alliance.
If Hariri was playing chess, his maneuver would have been called forking: A fork is a tactic whereby a single piece (Hariri in this case) makes two or more direct attacks simultaneously. Most commonly two pieces (the Aoun-Hezbollah alliance and the Berri-Hezbollah alliance in this case) are threatened, which is also sometimes called a double attack. The attacker usually aims to gain material by capturing one of the opponent's pieces.
For Hezbollah, the choice was obvious: Temporarily "sacrificing" the Berri veto was much less scary than the idea of losing the only non-Shiite ally in March 8. So on the 23rd of October 2016, Nasrallah quickly embraced the momentum and confirmed that his MPs were going to end the boycott, attend the 31st of October session, and vote for Aoun. At the same time, Hezbollah tried to absorb the impact of the FM's maneuver, with key leaders in the party (including Nasrallah) reiterating that Amal will not be isolated by the settlement, softening the blow for Berri. Hezbollah understood what the FM were doing, but had they stalled and waited for Amal to come around, Hariri would have actually turned his defeat into a win (by questioning the seriousness of Hezbollah's support to Aoun).
Now that Hezbollah and the FM were on board with his nomination, Aoun was for sure going to be elected (securing at least more than the absolute majority of the parliament), which meant that Jumblatt had to be part of the settlement even though he opposed a Aoun presidency for years. In Lebanese politics, if you can't fight it, you join it. And that's exactly what the PSP leader did by announcing, a few days before the 31st of October session, that he would eventually vote for Aoun after more than 30 years of animosity. Joining a settlement late is better than not joining in at all.
Berri and Frangieh had probably thought that Jumblatt would stick to Frangieh or Helou till the very end, but with the majority of the Lebanese parties siding with Aoun, it was useless to fight a lost battle, or even to try to block the quorum in the 31st of October election (since Aoun already had the support of a little less that the 2/3 of the MPs and that the Kataeb never boycott the sessions which wouldn't help Berri, Frangieh and the anti-Aoun FM/PSP MPs deny quorum). It would have been humiliating for Frangieh to side with Aoun after Aoun refused to side with him last year, so the Marada leader's late call for Berri's bloc to vote white instead of Frangieh can be seen as a compromise between an awkward reconciliation and a useless opposition (from the very beginning) to the new Aoun presidency. The same might be said about Berri saying that he could block Aoun's election but wouldn't: Although it was technically very hard to block Aoun's election by now, Berri's half-positive stance of not making a major issue out of it might be seen as a late-attempt to join a future consensus on the cabinet and stay in the decision-making process.
Lebanon's parliament finally convened on the 31st of October 2016, and while it elected Aoun president, it did it in a humiliating way: Michel Aoun needed only two votes to win from the first round which means that many PSP and FM MPs refused to vote for him and that Hariri and Jumblatt did not pressure them enough to do so, probably to deny Aoun the luxury of winning from the first round.
To make things even more humiliating, the two votes that denied Aoun the win from the first round were votes for "Myriam Klink" and "Gilberte Zouein".
Not humiliating enough? the second round was repeated two times because there was an extra ballot casted twicerepeated two times because there was an extra ballot casted twice (128 votes counted instead of 127), which delayed the process of Aoun's election (he was elected on the fourth round after the second and third were canceled), and made the parliament electing Aoun look like a classroom.
Speaking of the extra vote in today's second (and third) round of the election, the exact same thing happened in the second round of the 1970 election: There was an extra vote (100 instead of 99) so they canceled the round.
But in the end, Michel Aoun was elected president against all odds, and that's what matters for his party and its allies.
At least three years of maneuvering and decades of political and military struggling later, Michel Aoun was elected Lebanese president.
Posted in Lebanese Politics, Michel Aoun, Monthly Presidential Coverage, Politics on October 31, 2016 by Ramez Dagher. 5 Comments
The Aoun-Hariri rivalry on WikiLeaks
Michel Aoun, right, with Lebanon's former prime minister, Saad Hariri, left, as Mr. Hariri said he will back him to become president. (Image source: Reuters)
This is the 20th post in a series of monthly posts covering (forgotten/ignored) WikiLeaks cables about Lebanon.
Because spoiling political agreements between the Zuamas by sharing Wikileaks cables of them talking behind each others' backs has become a tradition on this blog (see here, here and here), this month's WikiLeaks cables I'm sharing are about Hariri and Aoun speaking (unspeakable) things about each other.
Inspired by Hariri's endorsement of Aoun that is finally ending more than two years of presidential deadlock, the cables quote (among other things) Aoun calling Hariri "inexperienced" and Hariri calling Bassil "crazy" and Aoun a "disaster" .
Note that in the second cable I'm quoting, from March 2006, Aoun clearly states that"once Aoun is president, he foresees no problems cooperating with Hariri as Prime Minister", although "he went on to label Hariri inexperienced, and unwilling to share power".
Well, who knew that 10 years later, in 2016, the two Zuamas were eventually going to share power?
I only kept the relevant parts of the most relevant cables I found. Enjoy.
MGLE01: HARIRI AND JUMBLATT DISCUSS STRATEGY
2006 February 24, 15:01 (Friday)
Hariri was confident that he could gain Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri's support for efforts to remove Lahoud. "He is easy to bring in," said Hariri. He even thought there was a chance Hizballah could be persuaded. MP Michel Aoun, sighed Hariri, was the real problem. Aoun believes that "it is him or nobody else" for the presidency. 3. (S) Thinking out loud, Jumblatt asked Hariri about a compromise wherein Aoun would be the "godfather" of the next president. It was apparent by Hariri's expression that Jumblatt had not raised this idea before. Hariri asked Jumblatt what he meant. Jumblatt replied that Aoun could name the next president as long as it wasn't Aoun. Hariri dismissed the idea, joking that Aoun would "choose someone crazy" like Gibran Bassil (son-in-law, senior advisor, and sycophant to Aoun). "
Link to the full cable.
MGLE01–AOUN READY TO COOPERATE WITH EVERYONE WHO SUPPORTS HIM
5. (C) Once Aoun is president, he foresees no problems cooperating with Hariri as Prime Minister. "As long as they obey the law and follow the constitution." But Aoun had a warning for March 14 as well. He accused members of March 14 of the habit of abusing power. The members of the group were involved in business scandals in the telecommunications, construction and contracting sectors, Aoun claimed. When the Ambassador pointed out that Hizballah runs illegal telecom and internet service and receives covert funds from a foreign government, Aoun acknowledged that "Berri, Jumblatt, and everyone except General Aoun" was involved in such activities and they would have to "stop it," to make way for a new era in public policy when Aoun is in charge. Aoun is still unimpressed with Saad Hariri as a political leader, "He acts like a Saudi prince." Aoun went on to label Hariri inexperienced, and unwilling to share power. He doesn't even share power within March 14. They are very obedient to Hariri," Aoun claimed.
MGLE01: HARIRI SAYS HE IS READY TO CONFRONT HIZBALLAH AT NATIONAL DIALOGUE
2006 April 25, 15:56 (Tuesday)
8. (C) Hariri then asked the Ambassador to deliver a strong message to Aoun. Stridently, Hariri said that the Embassy must scare the Aounists. Don't meet with Aoun. Rather, invite Aoun's senior adviser Gibran Bassil to the Embassy and "chew him out," Hariri said. "Tell them we know what you are doing and we are watching you; we know you are pushing Aoun to Hizballah," Hariri advised. "You need to scare Bassil." Hariri also advised that the Embassy deliver similar messages to Aounist MPs. Hariri continued that he wants to find the killers of his father, but Aoun does not seem to.
LEBANON: HARIRI SEES NO END IN SIGHT TO POLITICAL DEADLOCK
2009 August 19, 16:51 (Wednesday)
3. (C) During an August 18 meeting with Ambassador and PolOff, Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri described Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) leader Michel Aoun as a "disaster" and insisted that he had told the FPM leader several times he would not acquiesce to reappointing Aoun's son-in-law and go-to man Gebran Bassil as Minister of Telecommunications. "It's ridiculous to make Gebran Bassil a minister. I'd rather go home and not form a government," Saad declared. (Note: Bassil lost his race for a parliamentary seat in the June 7 elections. Both President Michel Sleiman and Hariri oppose appointing failed parliamentary candidates as ministers. End note.) A spent and somewhat muted Hariri dismissed the possibility of a compromise with Aoun based on granting Bassil a different ministry and disparaged Aoun's decision to use a fiery televised press conference to reject Hariri's invitation to meet to discuss government formation. "You can ask for whatever you want as long as it is not in the media. If you put it in the media, that's it. You've drawn a red line."
HARIRI DESCRIBES CHALLENGES FACING LEBANESE ARMED FORCES
2009 October 23, 15:40 (Friday)
8. (C) A visibly tired Hariri described himself as "very angry" at Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun's public rejection of his cabinet proposal on October 21. "We were so close; why did he go to the media? We could have discussed his concerns in private," he complained. Describing Aoun as "full of surprises," Hariri explained that he was analyzing the source of Aoun's outburst but that "it is important not to stop" efforts to form a government. Hariri outlined his hope to rebuild a relationship with Aoun to "pull his umbrella from the other parts of March 8.
Posted in Lebanese Politics, Michel Aoun, Politics, Saad Hariri, The WikiLebanon Files, WikiLeaks on October 27, 2016 by Ramez Dagher. 1 Comment
Aoun – Hariri : The Downfall of the BlueBerry ?
Aoun speaks during a joint press conference with Hariri in Beirut, Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016 (The Daily Star/Mohammad Azakir)
"Based on agreements, I announce my support for the candidacy of Gen. Michel Aoun," Hariri declared to loud applause.
"Aoun will be a president for all Lebanese," he added. "This is not a settlement, this is a sacrifice."
Yes. On October 20, 2016, Saad Hariri officially endorsed Michel Aoun as his presidential candidate, abandoning his previous endorsement of Sleiman Frangieh, and changing the rules of the Lebanese political game.
A little bit of context
When Berri gave hints, right after his agreement with Bassil on the oil dossier two months ago, that he was willing to accept a Aoun presidency as part of a bigger deal (He called it "السلة المتكاملة", which literally means "the complete basket"), he indirectly suggested a possible deal that also included a Hariri premiership and a consensual electoral law (package deal confirmed by Nasrallah's speech in August, that also included Berri as speaker). Berri's "blessing" meant two things:
Hariri would be seen in the mainstream media as the one preventing the election of a Lebanese president and a Aoun presidency in particular – going against the candidate of the de-facto Christian majority in parliament and on the ground – which would discredit him and sabotage his alliance with the LF even more, making Berri the first responder to the election of Aoun, and turning the Amal leader into a hero although he was practically doing nothing but maneuvering to get a better deal for Amal.
Hariri would also be blocking something that was going to eventually happen, since Aoun no longer had a relative majority in parliament, but around 65 MPs. In fact, while Michel Aoun and Samir Geagea were forging their alliance in February and everyone else was panicking, the FPM-LF alliance practically meant nothing back then: Aoun had the public support of the March 8 alliance (minus Amal and Frangieh) and Frangieh had the (not so public) support of Amal, the PSP and the FM. That meant that both candidates had around 45 to 50 votes (since you can never predict how smaller "offside" blocs such as Mikati's and Murr's bloc would behave with a Frangieh-Aoun confrontation in parliament), and both Frangieh and Aoun still needed around 15 to 20 votes to guarantee their election after the second round (you need 86 votes to make it through after the first round). The main obstacle for Aoun was that Amal did not eventually support him, while the main obstacle for Frangieh was that Hezbollah – basically the core of the M8 alliance – never really fell to the temptation of saying yes to him instead of Aoun – which was the goal of the entire FM maneuver of endorsing Frangieh in December. In other words,when it finally seemed that all of M8 (minus Frangieh's 3 MPs), as well as the LF, and some random MPs from M14 became on board with a package deal that supposedly included a Aoun presidency, that gave Michel Aoun around 65 MPs, and with almost half of the parliament already on his side, more MPs flocked towards his nomination: For minor independent MPs, that's the regular procedure when you know that a deal will happen since there's already a majority that approves it, and that if you stand against it, you'll get isolated by the deal. And in September, that's exactly what was happening to MP Makari of Koura who distanced himself from the FM and to MP Pharaon of Beirut who said he was favor of an all- inclusive deal that ends the presidential crisis. Check the most important table in Lebanon right now to see how Aoun became really (really) close to 65 MP mark once M8 (including Berri) and the LF became on his side:
If theoretically Hariri would be made prime-minister, he would leave at the first parliamentary elections, 9 months from now, with no guarantees of having him back in power after the elections. Aoun, on the other hand, would have been elected for 6 years, and a deal that simply tries to exchange a 9 month-term premiership with a 6 year term presidency, without a clear plan about an electoral law or a parliamentary elections would be unwise for Hariri (the potential prime minister).
To sum things up, Hariri was supposed to say no to a Aoun presidency, at least with no clear road-map with what was going to happen with the governmental formation (what would the governmental shares be in the government? 15-10-5 like 2010? 8-8-8 like 2013? Who are the centrists anyway?) and the electoral law. There were too much unknown variables to have a presidency deal, and Berri's maneuver was his way of reducing the FPM/LF pressure on Amal (the FPM were boycotting the cabinet and the dialogue sessions) to elect Aoun president by throwing all the blame on Hariri.
By the 17th of September, the media was buzzing with rumors that Hariri was surprisingly going to endorse Aoun as his presidential candidate. While it wasn't clear where the rumors originated from (an FM MP said that very same week that Aoun wasn't an independent president and that he doesn't represent the Christian's public opinion), Berri panicked, and said that he preferred Frangieh over Aoun.
Blue berries and strategic mistakes
That strategic mistake from Berri made it clear to everyone that he was not willing to vote for Aoun after all, even if everyone stood by the former general. In fact, until that very moment, it did not make sense for Hariri to endorse Aoun since, as explained earlier, it would be unwise to make such a huge concession (presidency) without making sure that he had something "worthy" (electoral law, governmental share) in return. But now that it was obvious that Berri wasn't willing to vote for Aoun even if Hariri endorsed him, the FM leader started one of his smartest maneuvers since November 2015: He began hinting, via visits to every politician that has ever exited (he visited Frangieh on the 26th of September, met with Gemayel on the 28th, also meeting Jumblatt that same day) that Michel Aoun was indeed an option, causing further panic in the Amal camp – especially after Hariri also met Berri that week: According to reports, Berri was willing to accept "half a package deal" involving "an agreement on the electoral law, the finance minister post, creating an oil ministry and retaking the energy ministry portfolio."
There was no Aoun presidency in Berri's half-package deal – at least in the press reports, which might have made Hariri realize that he could harass Berri and sabotage the March 8 alliance by circulating the name of Aoun as next president: By the 30th of September, Aoun was meeting with Hariri (yes, that escalated quickly). Berri tried to mask his strategic political faux-pas and tried to hide his Aoun veto by saying in that week that "he has no personal dispute with any candidate", but it was already too late, and soon enough, Berri (and Frangieh) understood that it was useless to *hide their emotions and try to mask their opinions*: Berri publicly clashed with the patriarch, which really isn't something he usually does, and the FPM did not surprisingly escalate when it came to October's cabinet meetings, only partially boycotting it twice, on October 6 and October 13th, for obvious reasons: And while they were actually sending a friendly message to everyone by dropping their full cabinet boycott, Frangieh was vowing to stay in the race despite everything, as Berri's sources still said that he would never nominate Aoun.
Introducing the sectarian card
When rumors of Hariri endorsing Aoun become even more relevant, Berri did something he never does: He used the sectarian card, and accused the FPM and the FM of making a deal behind his back and going back to the "Sunni-Christian duality era". In the last 5 years of Lebanese politics, speaker Berri had never, ever used the sectarian card. The aounists have been talking about the national pact too much recently (inserting the word "ميثاقية" in every speech), and Berri probably thought he could use the FPM's weapon against them. The FPM however had the momentum both in the political arena (via Hariri's meetings) and on the ground, via the 13 October anniversary protest. Hezbollah's awkward (official) silence also wasn't of much help to Berri, so the FPM, experts in using the sectarian card, smoothly stopped Berri's "you are turning back on Shias" rants by…not escalating (best strategy ever).
But it was already too late for anything anyway. Hariri had already figured out his master plan: In fact, Berri was trying to throw all the vacancy blame on Hariri, so when Hariri was sure (probably by the end of September) that Berri wasn't on board with the Aoun presidency even with Hariri's approval, the former prime minister came up with his brilliant maneuver of endorsing Aoun:
By endorsing Aoun without the consent of Berri and without the blessing of Hezbollah, Hariri is basically reuniting the two main cores of M14 (the FM and the LF) under the banner of Michel Aoun. (This is a historic sentence that I never thought I would write)
With a very high-ranking March 8 official such as Michel Aoun in the presidency, Hariri can more easily secure the premiership for himself as he is the leader of the March 14 coalition: A centrist president means a centrist prime minister, but a president from the core of one coalition can only mean that the core of the other coalition would serve under him: That rules out as next prime-minister, Mikati, Salam, Siniora, and any other Sunni politician that ever wanted to compete with Hariri on a national or even local level for the premiership.
With a centrist president in power, Hariri can probably suggest the name of someone else as prime minister as well as receiving an electoral law compromise afterwards. But with someone the rank of Aoun in power, Hariri can get a better deal, and he'll be getting those concessions mainly from Hezbollah and Amal since his endorsement of Aoun would put the FPM leader in the center of the Lebanese political game, as Aoun – with Hariri and Geagea's endorsements – would ironically have more M14 MPs than M8 MPs by his side.
Hariri shatters the March 8 alliance by handing the presidency to Aoun and leaving Hezbollah in the middle trying to mediate between Amal and the FPM. The FM suddenly becomes closer to all of the Christian parties (of whom he endorsed three figures: Frangieh, Geagea, and Aoun), while also making Amal and the Marada clash with the FPM and Hezbollah. Smooth. Very smooth.
A loss nevertheless
While it is still unclear how Saudi-Arabia gave Hariri the green light to endorse someone as controversial to the Kingdom as Aoun, two things are very important to note here: As much as this is the first political defeat for Berri since ages, Hariri is in no way a winner right now from this endorsement. Hariri has now conceded a defeat – although he made it look like a national victory in his speech – by endorsing Hezbollah's official candidate, and Ashraf Rifi is going to slowly take away Hariri's electorate and continue what he started in May (no one likes the moderates and those who make deals). With no apparent electoral law in sight – although there might be one under the table, who knows – Hariri will have lost (in the vacant presidency) a key negotiating card with the FPM, and although he is probably coming as prime minister under Aoun, he's going to have to fight for his place in the next parliamentary elections – especially as there was no agreement on a parliamentary extension. As president, Michel Aoun can directly control the formation of the cabinet, and with no agreement on that either, Hariri is going to struggle to form his government, and will have to pay the price – sooner or later – with Lebanon's political elite but also with his electorate, for going forward with a Aoun nomination without having any guarantees – not even anything about Hezbollah's involvement in Syria: What are they going to write in the ministerial declaration? Hariri mentioned a deal in his endorsement, but endorsing Aoun, without clarifying every microscopical detail in the deal – a la Doha agreement – would be major rookie mistake.
Perhaps Hariri was forced to take this path (he was right when he said it was a sacrifice), partially because of Amal's stances in the summer. He might have successfully taken the speaker down with him and unified March 14 in the process while shattering the Amal-Hezbollah-FPM trio, but he weakened himself before the scheduled parliamentary elections, and has prematurely abandoned his negotiating cards.
The only real winner here is Aoun.
Well, Aoun and Geagea (Since Geagea has all his allies now on the same side).
Technically, Aoun, Geagea, and the philosophical concept of patience and waiting 3 years in order to get what you want.
Oh, and by the way, the Aoun-Hariri presidency-prime minister deal was expected 3 years ago. 3 YEARS AGO.
Let's see what happens next. There's a presidential election session on the 31st of October. Should be interesting.
This was the 25th post in a series of monthly posts covering the presidential elections. This post is about the second half of September, and the month of October 2016.
880 days since the 25th of May (presidential vacancy). 1239 days since the 31st of May (parliamentary extension) .
Posted in Free Patriotic Movement, Lebanese Politics, Michel Aoun, Monthly Presidential Coverage, Nabih Berri, Politics, Presidential Elections on October 20, 2016 by Ramez Dagher. 4 Comments
Deal or No Deal?
The Lebanese supreme council of the tribal federation trying to reach a deal for the millionth time in three years this month. (Image source: September 5th 2016, The Daily Star/Parliament, HO)
This is the 24th post in a series of monthly posts covering the presidential elections. This post is about the month of August and the first half of September 2016 (the second half of summer).
Sit back and relax. This is going to be a long, long, long post. You have been warned.
Let's start by playing a little exciting game. The game is called "calculating the number of members of parliament that haven't been elected for 8 years yet are still eligible to elect a president and vote laws although they practically do nothing other than give speeches and maneuver all year".
In order to play this little game called "calculating the number of members of parliament that haven't been elected for 8 years yet are still eligible to elect a president and vote laws although they practically do nothing other than give speeches and maneuver all year" (yes, I copied and pasted that entire paragraph, just because I can), one needs a table that makes it easier. Lucky for you excited gamers, there's a table for you here on the blog:
In the dark cold month of February, and while Michel Aoun and Samir Geagea were forging their alliance and everyone else was panicking, I uploaded that table to tell the world that their alliance practically meant nothing: Aoun had the public support of the March 8 alliance (minus Amal and Frangieh) and Frangieh had the (not so public) support of Amal, the PSP and the FM. That meant that both candidates had around 45 to 50 votes (since you can never predict how smaller "offside" blocs such as Mikati's and Murr's bloc would behave with a Frangieh-Aoun confrontation in parliament), and both Frangieh and Aoun still needed around 15 to 20 votes to garantee their election after the second round (you need 86 votes to make it through after the first round).The main obstacle for Aoun was that Amal did not eventually support him, while the main obstacle for Frangieh was that Hezbollah – basically the core of the M8 alliance – never really fell to the temptation of saying yes to him instead of Aoun – which was the goal of the entire FM maneuver of endorsing Frangieh in December. So as predicted in February, the deadlock stayed and stayed and stayed although the alliances had completely shifted.
Then came the (politically) hot month of July: Berri and Bassil made a deal on the Lebanese gas and oil dossier, and Berri suddenly started saying nice things about the FPM, which is why I assumed back then – like everyone – that there was a very high probability that Berri's bloc would eventually vote for Aoun since the FPM and Amal are more or less on good terms since the beginning of this Summer. But that was pure speculation.
Panique
So Frangieh – in a probable panic mode – was meeting Gemayel in in his northern Lebanon home, perhaps in order to lure him into making the 5 MP Kataeb bloc side with the Marada leader to counter the recent Aounist momentum. The FM meanwhile were doing the same: The FM bloc met in Beirut and decided, via a 23-3 "internal" vote that they would not stand with Aoun in the presidential elections. The vote was made public for obvious reasons: Sending a message to everyone, that even with a Berri blessing, they would still stand against the election of Aoun.
In Lebanese politics, a no never means no (sometimes I say very deep quotes). Seriously though, a no in a Lebanese political negotiation means that you want something more. And that's what the FM probably meant with their very public No. They would not elect a president for 6 years without something in return that would have a long-term effect as the term of the Lebanese president.
Wait? What?? Deal???
And Berri got the message fast. Less than 5 days after the internal FM vote, Berri publicly promoted a package deal – confirming that electing the president alone doesn't solve the crisis. Right after that happened, we saw three interesting stances:
MP Abi Ramia of the FPM said that Aoun was the candidate of the Christian majority.
PM Salam said that other nominees than the current candidates were fit for the presidency.
Minister Machnouk said that Frangieh was not a permanent Future Movement candidate – Only 4 days earlier, another FM MP had said that the FM "cleaves" to Frangieh's presidential nomination.
In other words, the FM were hinting that with a good deal they would be ready to abandon the Frangieh candidacy if a good deal is on the table, Salam was hinting that the alternative would have to be someone else than Aoun, and the FPM…were still holding on to Aoun (surprise!). Probably depending on the deal, the name of the president would have to change. If the deal favors the FM a lot, Aoun would become president. If not, the name of the president would be the result of a more moderate compromise.
What package deal?
For this, we're going to fast-forward… one day: on the 13th of August, Hezbollah SG Hassan Nasrallah finally indirectly told us what the package deal – for the M8 parties at least – would look like: In his speech commemorating the 10th year since the July war, Nasrallah voiced his Party's commitment to supporting General Michel Aoun for Presidency, adding that "House Speaker Nabih Berri, our long term partner, is our only candidate for heading the Parliament Council," while expressing "openness" with regards to the Premiership issue after the Presidential elections.
Let me translate the proposal: Aoun becomes president. Berri gets a share of the oil that makes Amal happy enough to vote for Aoun and stays as speaker. The FM get the premiership.With Aoun in power, Hezbollah makes sure that a cabinet hostile to its policies in Lebanon, Syria, and beyond would not see light in the near future. On the Christian side, Geagea becomes the de-facto second in command behind Aoun and an FPM-LF alliance crushes all the smaller parties in the Christian districts in the next parliamentary elections (The proof: The FPM and the LF said in the same week that they want an electoral law with a joint green light from both parties) which means bigger shares in parliament for Aoun and Geagea. Everyone is happy. Everyone gains more from this deal.
Everyone except the FM, the Kataeb, the Marada, and the PSP
When it comes to the FM, the premiership (for Hariri probably) is "a prize" too little for them to approve in the context of such a deal. The prime minister would leave after the first parliamentary elections, and even if the FM coalition wins, there'll aways be a chance that Hariri would be ousted from the premiership like what happened in 2011 (throwback to when we almost had a civil war).
For the FM to agree on a 6 year long term deal, they would have to be given something that benefits them on the long run… and that would be an electoral law that favors them. Exchanging the premiership with the presidency, without having any guarantee about the next electoral law would be a rookie mistake that the FM are not willing to do no matter how tempting the presence of Hariri at the head of the government might be for the FM.
There's also the part where the parties have to share the ministers in the next government, but that's also a temporary developement and the key issue will always be the electoral law, because governments come and go but parliaments tend to stay in this country (throwback to that time Lebanon's politicians extended the parliament term twice).
For the Kataeb and the Marada, they clearly lose because they gain nothing in government and will have to face the LF and the FPM in parliamentary elections with an electoral law they will have no say in, while the PSP kind of lose their kingmaker status if a deal passes through without them in the middle being able to block everything.
This is exactly why the Kataeb panicked and decided to escalate their trash crisis struggle and take things to an entire new level by closing down the landfills in August with their protests – just to be clear, closing landfills is the right thing to do but I'm tackling the issue here from a political maneuvering point of view.
In case you're not following, more trash escalating means inducing more anger from the Metn electorate against the FPM and LF before elections which means higher odds for the Kataeb to secure Gemayel's home district in the next elections (here's a post from two months ago that explains the Kataeb escalations in detail). The Kataeb stopped their trash escalation this week, but their strategy remains the same: Make the FPM and the LF suffer as much as possible in the Metn before June 2017 arrives because it's the only district where they can hope to make it to parliament all by themselves.
The commander of the army: Complication or advantage?
One of the things that complicate the deal right now is that the commander of the army's term is expiring, which means that the ruling parties have another thing to share ( = add to the deal). As a potential next president, Aoun obviously wants the LAF commander to be close to him – the Lebanese president after all presides over the Supreme Defense Council and is the commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces which falls under the authority of the Council of Ministers (article 49 of the constitution), which might explains why the FPM is refusing to extend the term of the commander of the army with the absence of a president in power.
2006 + 2015 = 2016
Another reason why the FPM is focusing on the LAF commander issue right now is because they currently have more leverage than they will ever have: They're the only major Christian party that still has an active presence in government and this means that appointing/extending the term of a commander of the army (something relatively important) without their blessing can be considered to be illegitimate (There shall be no constitutional legitimacy for any authority which contradicts the pact of mutual existence, article J, preamble of the constitution). Ten years ago (in 2006), March 8 blocked two years of political life in Lebanon with this article (when they argued that a government – the first Siniora cabinet – without any Shia ministers had no legitimacy and had to resign), and it eventually worked to their advantage in the Doha agreement. And this is exactly what the FPM is doing now with their boycott of the cabinet sessions as well as the supreme council of the tribal federation sessions (the national dialogue got suspended too, in case you wondered) . So yeah, welcome back to…2006.
Yeah. Just kidding, it's 2015, since FPM and the other parties also have the possibility of exchanging the amy command with the presidency as part of a huge package deal (in case you forgot about the 2015 Roukouz-Kahwagi-FPM dilemma, here's a little reminder).
Berri said in August that he was going to be with Hariri whether the former PM did something wrong or not (why so suddenly nice, Mr speaker…), while MP Raad of Hezbollah said that the situation was ripe for the election of president, so it seems that the speaker – as well as Hezbollah – are definitely on board with the deal. One might even say that Berri wants to force a deal: He warned that "the country is to face crossroad by year's end if there's no agreement". And although the FM said that Nasrallah has no right to impose Aoun as sole candidate, there is nothing the FM can do now since Aoun has ≥ 65 MPs behind him, except blocking the quorum session (ironically like M8 are doing right now). But this FM "negativity", like I said earlier, might just be a temporary answer to get more concessions from the Aounist team (Aounist team = the parties who want to vote for him ): the definite proof? A Hezbollah MP said that "Mustaqbal may benefit most from Aoun's election".
Even Geagea wants the deal. Actually, forget Geagea: Even M14 MP Michel Pharaon wants a package deal.
In other words, all of M8 (minus Frangieh's 3 MPs), as well as the LF, and some random MPs from M14 are on board with the deal: That gives Michel Aoun more than half of the parliament on his side (cc the game we were playing before at the beginning of the post), and with the half of the parliament already on his side, expect more MPs to flock towards his nomination: Let's call it the Pharaon syndrome: You know that the deal will happen since there's already a majority that approves it, and if you stand against it, you get isolated by the deal. So you might as well embrace it, and hope to get something in return…like a parliamentary seat for Pharaon who will be crushed in the next parliamentary elections in case the LF and the FPM blacklist him (it's definitely going to happen if he doesn't stand with them), so you can say it's his way of "redeemint himself" (by endorsing Aoun) . And in September, the Pharaon syndrome was everywhere: Even MP Makari (who represents a Christian district in the North and who's closer to the FM than the LF), distanced himself from the FM.
All the politicians are playing it safe, and for a reason: A deal is coming, and you're either on the winning side, or the losing side will abandon you. That's why the minor politicians on the losing side are flocking to the winning side.
OrangeBerries!
Berri's indirect support gave Aoun a theoretical absolute majority, and once Aoun was there, his numbers only started getting higher. M8 just has to know what to concede so that the FM (and immediately after that the PSP) goes forward with his nomination and avoid another deadlock that would lead nowhere.
It won't be easy to find a governmental formation and an electoral law that pleases the FM, but we're almost there..almost.
I can't believe I'm actually going to say it, but right now, Aoun has the highest chances of becoming president. Aoun's chances are so high right now, Frangieh and Bassil clashed in the dialogue session on who represents the Christians more. But with the deal still in the making, Aoun is not going anywhere just yet, and if March 8 aren't willing to concede something big (#electoral_law), we might instead find ourselves with the FM asking for a president that's more to the middle between "March 8" and "March 14": Two candidates fit the profile according to the partisan media: Jean Kahwagi and Jean Obeid. Which also probably explains why…the media has been circulating reports of Jean Kawhagi gaining momentum in the presidential game.
On the bright side, Lebanon's politicians are actually looking for a solution to the deadlock. And it only took them three years to get here. Only three!
Posted in Lebanese Politics, Michel Aoun, Monthly Presidential Coverage, Nabih Berri, Politics on September 12, 2016 by Ramez Dagher. 1 Comment


This paper considers the developments of diversity in Europe in recent years. It highlights some of the key issues surrounding 'Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Diversity' as they have emerged and engaged public debate and policy development in various national and local contexts. Furthermore, it gives an overview of some of the academic literature concerning these issues.


All data usage information now can be accessed through the Data Viewer, regardless of meter type.
TNMP does not send bills to customers for their monthly electricity usage. That is done by your retail provider, which compiles all of your charges into one bill.
We do, however, read your meter and report the electricity usage to your retail provider.
That meter reading data is available through our Data Viewer.
TNMP-served customers whose new smart meters have been installed can choose either one of two options - or both - for seeing their electric usage data.


If you follow me on Instagram here, you'll know I am off to Japan in a couple of weeks for business slash pleasure. Visiting Japan has long been on my list of countries to visit, so when I wrote my 2014 goals for Mr Weekender back in November, Japan was high on this list. I've spent the last few weeks researching Japan, studying maps and learning about the Japanese culture. We've mapped out a busy schedule with each day packed full of sight seeing and exploring.
• If you are invited to a Japanese home, removal of shoes is a must. Slippers will be offered at the genkan, or entrance.
• When you use the toilet, you will usually find another pair of slippers awaiting you. Remember to change back out of your toilet slippers before reentering the other room!
• When entering a room you can say ojama-shi-mass, which literally means "I'm disturbing you," or shitsurei-shi-mass, which means literally "I'm being impolite". The latter phrase can also be used when parting company.
• When arriving at a Japanese home, you may be invited to take a bath. Remember: the bath is for relaxing; the shower is for washing. The bathroom floor is tiled and it is on the floor that you wash yourself with soap and rinse before stepping into the water. The cardinal rule: don't get soap into the bathwater.
With that in mind, if you know of any other customs or cultural nuances important for an international traveller to be aware of whilst visiting Japan, please feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email at jaharn@misterweekender.com. I'd love to hear your advice!


Significance: It was the home of James Buchanan from 1849, when he retired as Secretary of State until his death in 1869. During this period, Buchanan served as the 15th President of the U.S., 1857-1861. It wat built in 1828 on the order of William Jenkins, who gave the mansion its name. Jenkins occupied the house for about 10 years and was followed by 2 other owners before Buchanan purchased the estate.