Lebanon: The year of collapses … and of new beginnings

Lebanon just saw the end of one of the most difficult years in its contemporary history only to enter –full of uncertainty-, the last year of the decade. But 2019 was just as much the year of collapses as it was a year for laying down new groundwork. Collapses, in the plural, because it is not only a question of economy and finance, but of a whole political system which, instead of having been put at the service of building a post civil war State, ended up perpetuating sectarian political leadership, drawing its strength and power from the weaknesses of the nation it was meant to serve. And if we are talking about a year in which to break new ground, it is because 2019 marks the beginning of the rebirth of a drained country, and a population bled dry. Transcending both community and partisan differences and cleavages, Lebanese of all sorts and from across the country ended up rising against the entire political class, demanding its fall of course, but above all, asking that the government be accountable for the practices that resulted in making Lebanon the bankrupt country it is today. A country with a colossal public debt added to a failing infrastructure, an administration plagued by corruption, a wealthy political class, and a population that is sinking a little further into poverty and insecurity every day.

The outpouring of anger that started on October 17, when the Lebanese people took to the streets to protest against the proposal of an unfair and preposterous tax on the free communications application WhatsApp, was undoubtedly the natural result of the exasperation that has accumulated over the years. The tax in question was the straw that broke the camel’s back. On that day, thousands of Lebanese shouted to all those who, for thirty years, have been in power: "Enough is enough!” Because by giving its agreement-in-principle to this tax, Saad Hariri’s government, which was about to approve a draft budget supposed to pave the way for the international aid provided by CEDRE, has above all demonstrated that it had no clear vision for the future in regards to economical and fiscal matters. This decision also highlighted the absence of any desire for real reform and change in the management of public affairs, as demonstrated by the scandal of the underhanded recruitment of thousands of people within the administration, despite the stipulations of a law within the 2018 salary grid that legislated the freezing of all recruitment and appointments.

Warning signs

However, the political class should have expected a revolt, the signs of popular discontent started last December and persisted through the study of the 2019 draft budget: December 23, 2018, then again in January 2019, where from Tyre to Tripoli, via Nabatiyeh and Saida, demonstrations inspired by the Yellow Vests movement (Gilets Jaunes) in France were being organized against a general economic slide. These demonstrations intensified as of April, when the government announced its decision to make cuts in the salaries and pensions of civil servants and retired soldiers - albeit without envisaging an overhaul of the administration - due to the impact these payments have on public funds.

But the protest movement, at least in way it later developed, could not be reduced to a reaction to the economic crisis and to the unpopular measures that the government was preparing to adopt to reduce the deficit and clean up public finances. The street clearly demonstrated this when it rejected the new draft budget proposed by the outgoing Prime Minister a few days after the revolt, while the text itself did not propose any new tax, instead the reforms and new measures mainly involved the Bank of Lebanon and other banks and were aimed at the reduction of the deficit. It was an entire system of governance that the street was denouncing and condemning. The political class, which took offense at certain slogans chanted by the demonstrators, did not realize, or did not want to admit, that these slogans were nothing but a repetition of the accusations of corruption that its very own members had been shamelessly exchanging with one another over and over again since 2018, exchanges often witnessed through their constant, very public, quarrels.

As for the official, yet late, start to the fight against corruption, which could have reassured the protestors if it appeared to represent a real desire to put an end to this scourge, only ended up generating a real mess.

For some years now, Lebanon had been a practically ungoverned Republic, characterized by institutional drift that resulted in the neutralization of the Constitution in favor of new concepts imposed in particular by the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and Hezbollah. As an example, the concept of a "strong president; the most representative within his community", put forward in order to justify the "unavoidable" choice of the founder of the FPM as president. A concept in the name of which the presidential election was blocked for two and a half years, and which ended up giving rise to a political compromise, which it turn allowed for the election in October 2016 of Mr. Aoun as the head of State. Of the three main actors who brokered this compromise, only two remained committed to it during the first three years of the mandate: the FPM, and Saad Hariri’s Future’s movement. The third (the Lebanese Forces), who were the actual initiators of the compromise, were gradually removed from the equation, for considerations mainly related to Christian leadership, which the FPM sought to monopolize. The revolt ended up taking care of the rest and the Hariri-Bassil alliance did not survive.

A change in continuity

Whatever the outcome of the protest movement, 2019 will remain a pivotal year, because it has enabled the Lebanese people to become aware of the full extent of their power and their ability to position themselves as a vector of change in face of the lack of belief that any official change will take place. The authorities however, still have not gotten the full picture. Today, they are using the same maneuvers they always have, and it is all aimed at a revamping of the system rather than its overhaul. They firmly believe that they can convince the streets through the creation of a government of specialists, but whose ministers are – they hope – chosen by its main political components, in this case the FPM, Amal, Hezbollah and their allies. Future, the LF, the PSP and the Kataeb made it clear that they are not involved in current maneuverings, and that the government should be composed of autonomous specialists, capable of quickly putting in place an economic and financial rescue plan.

Ironically, this end of the year resembled its beginning when the negotiations around the composition of the Hariri government came up against their sharing of the cabinet portfolios, as well as attempts at a rebalancing, with the aim of allowing the FPM, Amal, Hezbollah and their allies to have -along with the position of head of state-, the majority of votes in the Council of Ministers.

It is also ironic that never has a government (formed on February 1 after nine months of consultations, quarrels and procrastination) baptized as being "At work" worked so little when it was faced with a major challenge, that of settling an economic crisis at its worst (where we are today), with a debt of $ 75 billion at the start of the year, equivalent to 150% of GDP, and a need to initiate the radical reforms required by the international community before they back the country up.

Whether politically or economically, the confusion and opportunism that have marked certain political leaders’ behavior have made it practically impossible to reach an agreement on the questions essential to the lives of the Lebanese people. Thus the campaign against corruption, launched in February, not by the government but by Hezbollah, quickly took on the smell of a political settling of accounts, particularly as it targeted former Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, before totally fizzling out. Despite an official pledge by the president in March to "resolve much of this problem by the end of May", no serious formal mechanism would be applied thereafter.

Quarrels and failures

The second government of Aoun’s mandate was thus quickly paralyzed by political quarrels and failures which its leader (the President) could not solve because of the priority he had set himself and the price for which he ended up paying - maintaining the presidential compromise at all costs - when it was obvious that the majority sought to impose new political rules, while at the same time weakening their adversaries. Over the course of the year, the Lebanese State was an entity that lost its bearings, a drifting boat without a captain.

The tone was set with the formation of the Hariri cabinet when Gibran Bassil had hurried to present a roadmap setting out Hariri’s upcoming program before the team itself had met to discuss the ministerial declaration. It happened again, when the State Minister for Refugee Affairs, Saleh Gharib, decided to visit Damascus without being authorized to do so by the Council of Ministers.

It was obvious that the majority was engaged in a process aimed at altering the State’s official commitments, in violation of the long running political consensus. The first quarter of the year was thus marked by a systematic campaign for the reestablishment of relations with Damascus, on the grounds of a settlement of the refugee issue, while officially Lebanon was aligned with the Arab League which had frozen Damascus’ status as a member state. This campaign further distanced Lebanon from its Arab environment and brought it closer to the Syrian-Iranian axis. One of the campaign’s direct outcomes was a meager official representation at the Arab Economic Summit which was held in April in Beirut.

Undermined by political cleavages and by power struggles, the government was not able to cope with the economic issues with the speed required by both the severity of the economic crisis, and the international community which was urging it to undertake the necessary reforms regarding the consolidation of public finances and the unblocking of international aid.

Suddenly, the priority was no longer an economic one, despite timid reminders by Saad Hariri, and by the president, who in March had invited the Lebanese to "resist" in order to contribute to the economic recovery, on the occasion of the launching of a "national campaign for the revival of the economy" In Baabda.

Twice, in February and then again in August, French President Emmanuel Macron postponed an official visit to Beirut, which was due to mark the implementation of CEDRE, while the United States sent a number of emissaries, in order to both assure Lebanon of their support, and warn the country against drifting towards the Syrian-Iranian axis.

It was also definitely the year of lost opportunities, due to a series of showdowns and controversies fueled in particular by the stellar stances of the leader of the FPM who went all out in order to establish his political influence, venturing into a minefield which was to give rise to a crisis with Hariri’s Future Movement, following biting comments on "political Sunnism born on the corpse of political Maronitism". Same with the Druze, with Gibran Bassil's attempts to put the longstanding quarrels about the Mountain War’s back on the table.

The tensions arising from this latter position were to culminate in the clashes of Qabr Shmun (between supporters of Walid Jumblatt’s PSP and Talal Arslane’s followers) and as a result, two supporters of Arslan were killed on June 30. These incidents paralyzed the government for two months.

The political managing of the Qabr Shmun affair has brought to light a desire to weaken Jumblatt –something which Saad Hariri refused to let happen-, without however calling into question the presidential compromise. But Hariri ended up calling off the latter arrangement on Christmas Eve, following new maneuvers aimed at reproducing a government similar to the previous one, albeit without political figures, but nonetheless with pawn-ministers who are expected to report to their party leaders.

(This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour on the 30th of December 2019)