The Lebanese Presidential Elections

With Lebanon's Presidential elections -- which are conducted in Parliament, not at the polls -- due to take place sometime before President Emile Lahoud's term ends in late November, maneuvering has been increasingly intense among the various factions. The US has been issuing warnings for Syria to stay out of the Presidential elections, and some editorialists have been expressing the view that the majority (that is, the existing government of Fuad Seniora) should not be interfered with by the opposition (Hizbullah, Nabih Berri, Michel 'Aoun, and others more or less aligned with Lahoud and with Syria). This, however, overlooks the fundamental principle on which Lebanon's delicate political house of cards is based.

Even before the long Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990, Michael Hudson published a book called The Precarious Republic. Its precariousness endures. By its very genesis in the National Pact of 1943, as amended in the Ta'if Accords of 1989, the Lebanese republic depends for its survival on building consensus among its multi-confessional power blocs. This has ususally been achieved through compromise and dealmaking, through the Arab concept of shura or consultation, rather than through confrontation. The present dilemma is created by a clash between the traditional consultative approach to achieving consensus and a more Western-style concept of government and opposition in which the majority carries the day. So long as the existing government of Prime Minister Seniora has sought to identify a Presidential candidate, Hizbullah and its allies have threatened to deny a quorum in Parliament to elect any candidate on whom they have not agreed.

Hizbullah chief Hasan Nasrallah recently called for direct, popular Presidential elections. That is unlikely to take place any time soon, but it pre-empts the Western argument that by denying a quorum in Parliament, Hizbullah is thwarting an expressed democratic will.

Adding to the uncertainties as the weeks count down toward the end of Lahoud's term (already extended once, in 2004, by three years), is the role of the Maronite Church. The President must be a Maronite under the National Pact and the Ta'if Accords; various prominent Maronite politicians are jockeying for the job; so it is perhaps unsurprising that the Maronite Patriarch, Nasrallah Cardinal Sfeir, has called Maronite leaders to meet with him in seeking to guarantee that Maronites are not marginalized. (Since the President will be a Maronite, the real question is what his political leanings will be. But there is a real danger that if agreement is not reached, two competing claimants to the Presidency could emerge. That happened before, in 1989-91, and prolonged the civil war beyond the Ta'if Accords.) Arguably nobody wants a revived civil war, but many Lebanese seem to be preparing for one. The situation is explosive, and outside meddling, while inevitable (Syria certainly will continue to support its allies), may be complicated by pressure from Washington or Paris or both to avoid compromise. The Lebanese system depends on compromise, and a failure to agree could lead to things spiraling out of control.

Cardinal Sfeir is 87 years old, but the Cardinal and the Maronite Order of Monks still heave considerable influence in Lebanese politics. He has expressed concerns about the increasing divisions in the Christian community, amid fears of a possible renewed civil war.

It is precisely the complexities of Lebanon's politics of compromise that make it difficult to explain in a short essay why automatic support of the Seniora government's position by the West could be ill-advised. The political mosaic shifts dramatically. Michel 'Aoun's presence on the political scene is inexplicable to anyone trained in Western parliamentary democracies. The former claimant to the Presidency and Prime Minister rejected the Ta'if agreements, held out in Beirut through 1990 and into 1991 until finally ousted by Syrian main force. He then fled into years of exile. Yet today, 'Aoun is aligned with the Syrians and with Hizbullah against many of his former Maronite allies.

The coming weeks will determine whether the parties in Lebanon are prepared to to find a middle ground, or whether things will continue to spiral out of control until some spark (another assassination perhaps) sets off a conflagration that, like previous Lebenese crises, draws Syria, Israel and the West into a confrontation.