Points of View
The Unity Government… A delicate Cohesion in Lebanon
For the first time a government in Lebanon gets the confidence of 121 over 128 parliament members. A high score that reveals the new context of harmony amongst different parties in Lebanon, a harmony that was mainly initiated by the positive regional context following the Saudi-Syrian summit held in Damascus. More than 95% of confidence seems to be different for Hariri who was nominated prime minister for the first time in June by a majority of 86 of parliament members' votes, and this difference between the two majorities equals the so called "Harmony" in Lebanon. While trying to put pressure on the opposition to urge it to abdicate some of its demands in forming the government, Hariri resigned, and then was nominated again in September but with a minor majority. Thus, this maneuver was completely reversed to benefit to the opposition, especially after the Saudi-Syrian reconciliation, which urged Hariri to meet the demands of General Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Current FPC.
The first government of Hariri junior has a record of four month of formation and more than a month in formulating the ministerial statement. The former was subject of several reservations put forward by Hariri's allies, especially from the Christians of 14 March coalition, who had firmly rejected the legitimacy granted to Hezbollah's weapon according to this statement. A similar text to the statement of the former unity government formed after the Doha agreement, grants the right to Lebanon's Army, resistance and people to regain its occupied territories and to defend against any potential aggression. The Christians of 14 March coalition, the Phalanges, the Lebanese Forces, Boutros Harb, Nayla Tueni, and other PM has severely attacked the statement, but finally approved it and granted confidence to the cabinet.
The status of harmony in which Lebanon lives these days, is the result of several reconciliations conducted amongst different political fractions. The sharp political polarization between the 8 and 14 March coalitions prevailing in the past four years is not as obvious as before, that's why the future of the 8 and 14 March coalitions, their coherence and unity are widely questioned today. In fact, the serious slap given to 14 March coalition came from one of its prominent leaders, Walid Joumblatt. That was when the former decided after the parliamentary elections to reposition his party to be independent from the 14 March coalition, without totally aligning with the 8 March coalition. Such a controversial decision relatively expected from Joumblatt has strongly reshaped the political scene in advantage of the opposition, which became more decisive to get all its demands of the government proportion satisfied. Joumblatt justified his new positioning by the errors committed by the 14 March coalition in its struggle for sovereignty and independence. He was keen to renew his affiliation to the Pan-Arab cause and to admit the right of Resistance, and to show his regret about his former alignment with the Bush administration in the last few years.
The 14 March allies unwelcome this reorientation, they assured their unity and coherence, but practically their coalition is about to fall. Hariri starts to act moderately according to his new position of prime minister. And to accelerate the formation process of his government, he ought to meet several times with his former adversaries, General Aoun, Hassan Nasrallah and Nabih Berri. But after each of these meetings, he had to meet his allies to justify his new moderate discourse. The Phalanges, aware of the new marginalizing attitude of its Muslim allies, chose to reconcile with the Marada and the CPL, two prominent Christian opposition parties. Only Lebanese Forces seem to be isolated when decided to stay away from moderate context and insisted on their hostile discourse towards Syria and the 8 March coalition.
On the other hand, the 8 March coalition starts to face some divergences, not to be compared with those witnessed by the 14 March coalition. General Aoun has aligned with his Christian colleagues from 14 March and firmly opposed the suggestion of Nabih Berri of creating a national committee to end political sectarianism. This initiative was firstly adopted by the President Michel Sleiman in his discourse on the Army Day, and wasn't welcomed by all Christians neither from 8 or 14 March. Then Berri put it forward again in the opening of the parliamentary sessions during the discussions of the ministerial statement. And surprisingly, the Christian politicians shared the same opinion and argued that such an initiative would threat the Christians' position in the Lebanese political life, and insisted that the sectarianism should be abolished first from spirits not from texts. Therefore, Aoun met with the Maronite patriarch after years of competition and hostility. But also he conducted a historical reconciliation in the presidential place with Walid Joumblatt to overcome the historical hostility amongst Maronite and Druze since the forced immigration occurred during the civil war. But Sleiman Franjeyia, other Christian opposition leader preferred to reconcile with the leader of Phalanges, Amin Gemayel, and adopted a moderate discourse towards Hariri, without loosing its tight links with Hezbollah and Amal.
Despite this shy repositioning of some of the Lebanese parties and the abandon of the extremist discourse by different politicians, the root masses are still adherents to the 8 and 14 March polarization. The student unions' elections are held in terms of the previous alliances, and the masses of 14 March are mostly unable to adapt with the new line of their respective leaders. The reconciliation with Syria is the key contestable issue which decreased of credibility of 14 March allies; they should now move aside their political accusation of Syria's involvement in assassinations, reconcile with its leadership and wait for the report of International investigation comity next March. Meanwhile, the death of Syrian president's brother urged every hesitant amongst the 14 March coalition to visit Damascus, with a logic pretext of consolation. Accordingly came the visit of Hariri to Damascus this weekend, to be the first challenge he had to overcome as a Statesman. A year after reinitiating the Syrian-Lebanese relations, Syria seems to be much stronger than before, since the Lebanese president visited Damascus before and after his trip to Washington, while Syria's allies in Lebanon are well represented in both parliament and government. And as former rival to Syria, Hariri is now obliged to keep contact with it according to the presidential tendency and the regional context. On the other side, the Western powers have constantly decreased their support for their Lebanese allies, which obliged the formers to turn back to the domestic agenda.
The new cabinet will face several challenges: the socio-economic reforms are the most pressing issue after four years of political and economical crisis witnessed on daily basis by every citizen. But also the new cabinet is urged to find practical solutions for the persistent problem of electricity and water resources by resuming developmental projects in the different regions. On the political level, the resistance issue will be discussed within the national dialogue sponsored by the president in order to agree on a new defense strategy. But apparently the resistance will continue to preserve its weapons and role, recently re-legitimized by the ministerial statement, since the consensus over a defense strategy seems to be inaccessible in this period. By the same way, the suggestion of activating the non-applied texts of Taif agreement by creating a national committee to end political sectarianism and the installation of a senate would not gain an easy consensus. And this is because each Lebanese confessional party is somehow satisfied with its position in political life and will not let go. However, to sustain their reformist facade these parties might cooperate with President Sleiman in conducting his Powerful State project through a restructure of the internal security forces and an anti-corruption campaign.
Finally, the most important challenge for this government is to preserve its own cohesion, or in other terms, it should avoid tackling strategic projects that entails divergence. However, the president seems determinant to mark his rule by strategic reforms, thus he would eventually push the government to engage his reformist program, and in the meanwhile he would be responsible to preserve, both his neutrality and the government's delicate cohesion.
Rabha Seif Allam
Researcher at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, Cairo
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- Origin CERMAM
- http://www.cermam.org/en/logs/vue/the_unity_government_a_delicat/
- Publié le 25 January 2010