Cyclical political crises that paralyze state institutions and regularly postpone all electoral deadlines and government formation, insecurity and powerlessness in the face of interference from regional and international actors, widespread clientelism at all levels of the administration, a public debt estimated at more than 150% of GDP, banks (where 1% of depositors hold 50% of the deposits) are in dire straits, hyperinflation and falling purchasing power, half of the population is impoverished and Palestinian and Syrian refugees are living in misery. One hundred years after its birth, "Greater Lebanon" is sinking into the abyss and no longer has the means to recover.
If the political-confessional cleavages, the mediocrity and corruption of the ruling political class as well as the dilemma of Hezbollah's weapons and its organic alliance with Iran are largely responsible for the current situation, it is nevertheless clear that the Lebanese system itself, based on "consociationalism", is dying.
This essay attempts to shed light on this decline of the Lebanese formula as a power-sharing philosophy that has regulated public life since the ratification of the constitution and the first electoral law in 1926. A philosophy that also inspired the National Pact at independence in 1943, and sought to guarantee political representation for all religious communities and to reconcile their different "strategic" choices.
But since the political,
economic and demographic upheavals of the last five decades, consociationalism no
longer allows for a balance and guarantees in political life, despite the
official division of tasks consolidated (and modified) in the Taif Accords in
1989.
There are many reasons for
this.
Characteristics of the political elites
The first reason concerns
the role that political elites have to play in consociational experiences and
their readiness to find compromises in order to guide their respective support
bases towards conflict avoidance or resolution.
The traditional Lebanese
political elites, the Zou’amas (notables, merchants, bankers, and
lawyers) assumed this role until 1958. The mini civil war that year (for
internal reasons and for external alliance choices) showed the limits of their
capacities. The short-term solution that followed, leading to the election of
General Fouad Chehab as president, established a phase of stability, economic
development and modernization of the administration. However, it failed to
introduce political reforms capable of containing possible divergences and adjusting
the consociational formula to accommodate economic and social changes and
developments. Thus, tensions and divisions over political participation and
quotas, socio-economic disparities, and especially over the rise of Palestinian
militancy in the late 1960s, pushed the country towards civil war. The
upheavals caused by the civil war from 1975 onwards, the Syrian and Israeli
invasions that fuelled it, the political culture and mutations of the militias
during its various episodes, the emergence of Hezbollah and finally the
hegemony of Damascus from 1990 until 2005 turned the page of the
"traditional elites" and paved the way for militant partisan elites.
The latter, with their hegemonic ambitions and external alliances and funding,
are ready to fight to impose their choices (and those of their sponsors), or at
least to hinder the functioning of state institutions if these choices are not
respected.
The consequences have been
dramatic: recurrent crises and inability to make decisions.
Monopolization of community
representations
The second reason concerns
the monopolization of confessional representation. Since 1975, the Maronite,
Druze and then Shiite communities, considering themselves threatened, have
sought, one after the other, an internal solidarity based on loyalty to a
political/paramilitary force. This led to the construction of institutions and
dominant discourses within these communities. The major reconstruction projects
from 1992 onwards and Saudi support enabled Rafik Hariri to rally the Sunni
community, whose majority unified around his leadership and what he embodied
(until his assassination in 2005 and his succession by his son Saad).
The division along
communal lines in many areas due to the forced displacement caused by the war,
the Israeli and Syrian occupations, the inherent memories and the real and
imagined demarcation lines have in turn reinforced the political and cultural
hegemony within the different communities.
And all this has erased
diversity, reducing choices to one or two camps per community, and turning alliances
between political forces into monolithic confessional blocs, each capable of
blocking - in the name of consociationalism and community rights - institutions
and paralyzing political life.
Interference of
foreign actors
The third reason is the
relationship between confessional forces and external actors. The latter have
often been an influential element in Lebanese political equations, as since
independence, the national consensus has been fragile in terms of official
positioning vis-à-vis the regional and international axes clashing in the
Middle East. At the same time, confessionalism has encouraged foreign actors to
hunt for allies in order to create arenas for "alternative"
confrontations, given Lebanon's strategic location.
These dynamics have been
amplified over the last twenty years, and their latest episodes are the clashes
by proximity between Iranians and Saudis, or between Iranians and Americans
(not to mention the threats between Israelis and Iranians that evoke settling
of scores on Lebanese soil and its borders), thus endangering the stability and
security of the country.
A rigid system and a
society on the move
The fourth reason lies in
the fact that consociationalism in the Lebanese political system is an inert
formula that has proved incapable of coping with the transformations taking
place in society. The latter is moving, evolving and changing its features
demographically, culturally and economically. However, no political force has
been able to change the system or introduce amendments beyond the simple
redistribution of power shares and prerogatives.
This leads to the idea that the static consociational formula has become incapable of avoiding unrest and managing power sharing in an effective way. However, it also makes it difficult to move away from it in times of crisis. Indeed, it is impossible to exclude any group from participating in the exercise of power, as confessionalism has become the only form of representation, rooted in the state system and through religious institutions.
Hezbollah's
overpower
Since 2005, the Lebanese
scene has suffered the consequences of the excessive power of Hezbollah, which
plays the same role in Beirut as the Assad regime once did. Based on its
popularity within the lage Shiite community, on Iranian weaponry and the
effectiveness of its armed wing, and on its alliances and networks of
allegiance, its over-power has several effects: it allows it to impose choices
in foreign policy, to deploy its militiamen against its opponents, to send thousands
of fighters to Syria to defend its regime, and to distinguish itself as the
most reliable Iranian ally on all of Tehran's warring fronts in the region. And
this of course has repercussions on the balance in Lebanon and on the
philosophy of its political formula...
Due to these five
developments and factors, the consociational model, born a few years after the
birth of "Greater Lebanon" is now in decline, and so is the political
life.
The October 2019
revolution, its repression and the inability to govern and reform the failing
institutions despite the devastating explosion in the port of Beirut and the
pressure from France and the international community ready to support a
financial rescue, show how distressed the country is.
