Analysis of the constitutional crises in Lebanon

Kim Ghattas
Beirut – As Lebanon continues to wait for a new president and inches
closer to the possibility of a constitutional vacuum, a sense of doom
is settling over the country.

Issam – a 50-year-old owner of a large business – sends his
wife to stock up on tinned food for their mountain house in fear of a
possible war.

At a jeweller’s shop, the talk is all about the rising price of gold.
“Every time the price of gold rises like that, there’s a war in the
region,” says one woman.

Trying to make appointments with people is sometimes impossible -
“Call me tomorrow, who knows if we’ll still be alive then” is often the
answer.

And then there are those who have postponed all their plans, from
going on holiday to buying new clothes, until after 24 November – the
date on which the current president, pro-Syrian Emile Lahoud is meant
to leave office. Parliament needs to elect a new president before then
or the country will plunge deeper into a crisis that has paralyzed
political life for the last year.

The election has been postponed twice already because of a lack of
quorum, as rival camps – the anti-Syrians and the pro-Syrians – try to
hammer out an agreement outside parliament. The next attempt has been
slated for 12 November but is most likely to be postponed again.

Assassinations

The 6-year-long mandate of President Emile Lahoud was extended for three years by a vote in parliament in 2004.

The
extension required a constitutional amendment which legislators
approved after much pressure and arm-twisting from Damascus. At the
time, Syria was still the political power-broker in Lebanon, where it
maintained more than 10,000 troops.

The vote extension turned out to be the start of Lebanon’s worst crisis since the end of the 15-year-long civil war in 1990.

Since
2004, there have been eight assassinations of high-profile anti-Syrian
figures, including legislators and the former prime minister Rafik
Hariri, massive demonstrations by both Syria’s opponents and its
supporters, and a devastating war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Today, the situation is as follows:

The
anti-Syrian camp has a majority in parliament for the first time in
decades and wants to use it to install someone from its bloc as
president, thus reclaiming one of the last vestiges of Syrian influence
in Lebanon.

Four anti-Syrian legislators have already been assassinated, and to
avoid being deprived of the slim majority they still have in
parliament, members of the anti-Syrian bloc have checked in en masse
into a highly-secured hotel until a president has been elected.

Stand-off

The
pro-Syrian opposition accuses the majority of doing America’s bidding
in Lebanon and insists on a compromise candidate, someone who will
protect Hezbollah and its weapons.

The two sides have been in a stand-off for two years, with the
opposition maintaining a sit-in in the centre of Beirut, effectively
besieging the prime minister’s offices and other government buildings.

For such a small country, Lebanon commands a lot of international attention.

The country’s presidential election was on the agenda of the US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she held talks with some of
her European counterparts in Turkey over the weekend, on the sidelines
of a summit on Iraq and its neighbors.

Lebanon
also came up in talks between US President George W Bush and French
President Nicolas Sarkozy in Washington this week, and French
presidential envoys have been sent to Damascus and Beirut.

The Arab League regularly sends representatives to Beirut and the
Russians have also weighed in with a call on Lebanese leaders to
“realize the historic responsibility and reach accord” at this
“fateful” moment for Lebanon.

Regional tensions

Many of the regional issues and tensions come together here and
often threaten to boil over: the Arab-Israeli conflict, Shia-Sunni
tensions and more importantly the US-Iran stand-off.

The
battle for influence over the Middle East is being fought not just in
Iraq but also in Lebanon, and the election of a new president has in
effect become a showdown between the US and Europe on one side, backing
the parliamentary majority, and Iran and Syria on the other, supporting
the opposition, led by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

There are fears that if Lebanon fails to elect a new president, it
could plunge into a constitutional vacuum and possibly civil strife.
This in turn could have implications for the wider region, with the
possibility that a conflagration could start in Beirut and spread
throughout the Middle East.

Many observers, including some members of the anti-Syrian camp,
advocate a compromise solution in the form of a consensus candidate to
avoid rocking the boat at a time when the region is unstable and talk
of war between the US and Iran is in the air.

Staunch members of the anti-Syrian camp say a compromise candidate would mean giving in to Hezbollah, however.

Rival administrations?

The US, worried about the possibility of losing Lebanon to the
Syria-Iran camp, is sending strong signals – in statements by
Condoleezza Rice and the US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad -
that it believes the majority should choose the president.

If
no president is elected by November 24, the Prime Minister Fouad
Siniora, an ally of the West, takes over executive power under the
constitution.

But the opposition has already warned it will not recognize Mr
Siniora’s powers and there are fears it might form a rival cabinet.

The parliamentary majority has also threatened to elect a president
by a simple majority vote in the assembly, instead of the required two
thirds – a move the opposition rejects as illegal.
Such a split
could also lead to the setting up of two rival administrations, a sad
reminder of the last few years of Lebanon’s civil war when a similar
situation arose.

“The fate of Lebanon is in the hands of Bush and Sarkozy” was the
headline of the opposition al Akhbar newspaper on Wednesday – and in
the hands of Syria and Iran, the anti-Syrian camp might retort.

What is clear is that as so often in its history, Lebanon finds
itself – or allows itself to be – at the centre of a tug-of-war between
world powers, a struggle that is probably not going to end on November
24, unless signs of a regional agreement somehow emerge.

And so holidays and clothes-buying will most likely be postponed again and more tinned food bought.

Sources: BBC News
Via: Yalibnan