Lebanese Elections: Three Scenarios
As Shiite, Sunni and Christian considerations threaten to disrupt and even cancel the Lebanese elections scheduled for this summer, Jean Aziz outlines the three potential paths developments could take in the near future.
Following months of failure by Lebanese government and opposition political forces to agree on a new electoral law, the three officials constitutionally responsible for the holding of elections took it upon themselves to enforce the currently applicable law, under which the last Lebanese legislative elections were held in 2009. To that end, the interior minister submitted a decree calling for elections to be held on June 9, which Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and President Michel Suleiman signed.
According to the timeframes defined by this law, which a large portion of Lebanese reject, the window for submitting candidatures begins 90 days prior to elections, and remains open for 30 days — in this case beginning on Monday, March 11. Yet, these developments do not mean that the elections will be held. For many obstacles still prevent them from occurring; be they legal, political, or practical. Legally, elections still necessitate two actions: the first is the formation of an independent supervisory body that would oversee the elections, as stipulated in the current law. The second necessitates that the cabinet approve the disbursement of a financial advance to the interior ministry, which is responsible for organizing the elections.
It is obvious that the majority in Mikati’s cabinet, composed of an alliance between Christian political parties led by Gen. Michel Aoun and Shiite forces, alongside a Sunni and Druze minority, refuse to endorse these two steps, thus preventing the holding of elections under the old contentious law. In return, this faction’s opponents are trying to come to a compromise position between that of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, his Christian allies, and the leader of the Druze minority, Walid Jumblatt, in order to prevent parliament from achieving the legally required quorum to hold a legislative session that would ratify the new electoral law, demanded by the cabinet’s majority.
It has thus become clear that Lebanon’s opposing factions have achieved a mutual veto capability, whereby the opposition is able to prevent the ratification of a new law, while the majority is able to prevent the holding of elections under the old law. In view of this impasse, three different scenarios arise:
