Lebanon’s Election: Free but Not Fair

May 22, 2005

Every week, my husband and I take a rickety old taxi to Hezbollah country. The emerald city of downtown Beirut, with its glittering luxury towers, drops away behind us; ruined buildings, their shell-shocked hulks festooned with laundry, loom ahead like ghost ships.

We soon leave Beirut proper and reach the dahiya — the dense and sprawling Shiite crescent, half suburb, half slum, that cradles the city’s southern borders. In the dahiya, home to my in-laws and a large swath of Beirut’s population, the recent anti-Syrian protests that became known as the Cedar Revolution seem like a fairy tale. “As an area, as dahiya, we’re not concerned about what’s happening in downtown,” one college student told me in March while demonstrations raged in Martyrs’ Square. “We regard what’s happening as a joke.”

Around the world, however, the candy-cane banners and multilingual college kids of the uprising caught the imagination of millions. Holding parliamentary elections on time, free of Syrian influence, became democracy’s new rallying cry. President Bush cautioned against delaying the poll, scheduled to run on four consecutive Sundays beginning May 29.

Justice Ministry looks to drafting new electoral law Qabbani says goal is real representation Daily Star , May 23, 2005 BEIRUT: The Justice Ministry’s Committee for Unifying and Modernizing Laws has formed a subcommittee that will have one month to draft a new modern electoral law in line with the Constitution and the Taif Accord. Justice […]

The General and The Particular By Nahla Atiyah , May 23, 2005 Zone A in Rabieh on the northern hills of Beirut is one urban oasis in the jungle of our sprawling capital. Pristine gardens hug upper crust villas, home to the expensively anorexic. The rustling wind plays the leafy trees. And only a small circle […]

Aoun-Jumblatt alliance unlikely in Lebanon polls

By Majdoline Hatoum
Daily Star , May 23, 2005

BEIRUT: With less than a week left to go before the start of the first leg of Lebanon’s Parliamentary elections, the electoral alliance between leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) Michel Aoun and leader of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) Walid Jumblatt appears to have disintegrated into shambles.

But the possibility of an alliance between Aoun’s FPM and Saad Hariri, head of the Future Movement and Jumblatt’s staunchest political ally, remained strong with reports that a coalition might be formed between the two parties in North Lebanon.

Aoun, who formally announced he will be running in the elections, said Sunday: “We will continuediscussions with Hariri even if talks have ended with Jumblatt.”

Meanwhile, Speaker Nabih Berri called on all Lebanese political factions to hold an internal discussion aimed at building “Lebanese unity,” adding that sectarianism has driven the Lebanese apart.

Lebanese Agree Election Law Needs Reform: UN Envoy

May 22 , 2005

BEIRUT (Reuters) — Lebanese politicians agree that electoral reform must be a priority after Lebanon holds its first parliamentary polls for three decades without Syrian troops in the country, a U.N. election expert said on Sunday.

Lebanese go to the polls in four rounds of voting from May 29 to June 19 under a widely criticised law designed to maximise the influence of pro-Syrian politicians in the 2000 elections.

“If there’s one area of consensus, it’s obviously that the 2000 law has flaws and also that the electoral law needs to be discussed immediately after the elections,” Carina Perelli, head of the U.N. elections unit, told Reuters in an interview.

Many Lebanese believe their politicians will simply go back to business as usual once the election is over and quietly forget their promises of reform made after protests by hundreds of thousands of people helped force the Syrian withdrawal.

Voting for new Middle East order

Nicolas Rothwell , May 22, 2005 , The Australian

WHEN Lebanese voters go to the polls this weekend in the first phase of their country’s parliamentary elections, the impact will resonate far beyond the avenues of rebuilt Beirut and the souks of Tripoli.

The voting system may be imperfect, the campaigning may be centred on the creation of alliances of convenience, but this election marks the democratic end game of a remarkable popular revolution.

The effect upon neighbouring Syria, which has just completed its reluctant troop withdrawal from Lebanese soil, will be profound, while the remainder of the Arab world may once more begin to take its political lead from Lebanon.

For the US and France, the two half-declared international sponsors of the Lebanese uprising, the successful outcome of their pressure campaign on Syria suggests that persuasive diplomacy may trump force as a weapon in the struggle to promote Middle Eastern reform.

And for Israel, Lebanon’s southern neighbour and former occupier, the end of the era of virtual Syrian control may once more raise hopes of a comprehensive peace with the next government in Beirut.

Lebanese unity erodes before poll

Rania Abouzeid, May 22, 2005

AS the clock ticks down to Lebanon’s parliamentary elections, which start on Sunday, political infighting and sectarian suspicions have eroded the national unity forged after the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri in February.

Hariri’s slaying and the massive street protests that followed brought down Beirut’s pro-Syrian government and