Gerrymandered elections

Post-war elections are usually seen as a key in restarting the democratic process after civil war, yet studies from multi-religious states, show that elections tend to reinforce rather than replace consociational politics (Belloni 2004). Lebanon’s pre-war elections (1960–72), were held on the basis of the same electoral law, the 1953 electoral law which prescribed district-wise voting. The 26 districts (Ar. qada, pl. aqada) were for the most part uni-confessional areas (Norton and Schwedler 1994: p. 50). The elections were dominated by a clientelist system controlled by urban and rural leaders who were re-elected without facing any real opposition and positions were inherited from father to son. This cemented the rural and urban elites grip on power. In order to break the old clan-based clientelist political system and forge multi-confessional alliances, the Taif Agreement stipulated that voting should be based on large administrative units or “governates” (Ar. mohafazah, pl. mohafazat). The purpose of this change was to bring an end to the pre-war district-wise voting and break the clientelist system. The electorate was also enlarged beyond the 108 stipulated in the Taif Agreement to 128 with an equal number of representatives for Christians and Muslims.

The post-war parliamentary elections have all violated the Taif Agreement. First, in each of the post-war parliamentary elections (1992–02), a new electoral law has been used. Secondly, the post­war elections saw a return to district-wise (“uni-confessional”) voting in some or all of the districts in order to secure seats for influential politicians (often with Syrian backing) and to weaken opponents. Thirdly, the confessional system has not been revoked as stipulated in the agreement. These violations have made the election system unjust,[12] and resulted in a low level of trust in government and politicians (Haddad 2002). Failing to reform the political system has ensured that there have hardly been any changes in the composition of the post-war parliaments and most MPs still inherit their seats along family lines (Khalaf 2003).

The post-war elections (1992–02) have been conducted under Syrian tutelage, especially the 2000 elections where the electoral law was orchestrated by Syria (Gambill and Aoun 2000). The law combined voting along governates and districts by carving up some governates along carefully drawn district boundaries and even joining areas that are not geographically contiguous into a single district. The purpose of the electoral manipulation was to ensure the election of candidates favoured by Syria.[13] Beirut, which previously had been a single electoral unit , was split into three carefully circumscribed districts in order to weaken the electoral clout of Rafiq Hariri and boost those of his main rivals.[14] On the other hand, in the 2000 elections supporters of Rafiq Hariri were accused of buying votes for US$ 64 apiece (Gambill and Aoun 2000). Due to extensive malpractice, the per capita costs of the Lebanese elections are one of the highest in the world (Picard 2002: p. 53).

One explanation for the weakness of political parties in Lebanon is the role played by electoral “lists”, a particularity of the Lebanese electoral system. For each electoral district, the different sects are allotted candidates in proportion to their share of the electorate. As an example the Baalbek-Hermel district has ten seats divided among Shia (6), Sunni (2), Maronite (1) and Greek Catholic (1) candidates. Voters are therefore casting their ballot for a multi-confessional list of candidates that has been assembled after (more often than not) Syrian consultation. Although names can be crossed out, this rarely happens. The composition of electoral lists is therefore much more important for electoral victory than political programs and party manifestos. The electoral lists are given nondescript names to appeal to voters of different religious sects. It is also common that some of the candidates, often with no prior political experience, are able to buy themselves onto an ele ctions list by promising large sums of money to the leader of the list and offering to sponsor the election  campaign.[15] Due to late minute deal-making, the electoral lists are usually announced only a few days ahead of the elections, thus precluding ordinary election campaigns. Because of the importance of electoral lists, most of the parliamentarians are not affiliated with parties but with lists. In post­war elections, the percentage of candidates having a party affiliation has remained around 30 per cent, thus almost two thirds of the deputies in the parliament are non-partisan independents (el Khazen 2003b: p. 70). In the 2000 elections, only three of the 128 seats were won by candidates not affiliated with an electoral list.

In addition to pre-election manipulation of electoral districts and electoral lists, Lebanon’s gerrymandered elections include vote rigging, voter intimidation, buying of votes and control of media-outlets in favour of pro-Syrian candidates and independents. In order to limit the political role of the large Lebanese diaspora (who hold Lebanese citizenship), the electoral law excludes them from voting. As émigrés, they are expected to vote for the opposition, and excluding their vote serves to bolster the position of pro-Syrian candidates. A further oddity of the Lebanese electoral law is that people do not vote in the constituency where they live, but in the village where they are born. This means that about half of the population cannot cast their vote where they live and work (el-Kak 2000). This has had negative implications for the urbanised rural populations who unable to vote for local political candidates are also excluded from access to political patrons dispensing services and goods.

For the reasons cited above, the voter turnout in post-Taif elections has been very low, in particular in the 1992-elections when Christian leaders and parties boycotted the elections because of the presence of Syrian troops.[16] In order to boost the legitimacy of the elections, the authorities have inflated the size of the voter turnout. In light of the above it is easy to understand why agreeing to a new electoral law has proved difficult and in spring 2005 served to polarise the pro-Syrian groups and the anti-Syrian opposition. The opposition parties charged (Omar Karami’s) government with purposely delaying the elections in order to prevent a popular resentment against Syria’s hegemony to translate into a landslide victory for the opposition.

In preparation for the 2005 parliamentary elections a new electoral law should have been tabled but the political situation, international pressure to conduct the elections on time and the disagreements between the major actors made this impossible. The controversial 2000 electoral law hence got a new lease of life despite vocal Christian criticism. The Christians’ fear of being marginalised explains why Boutros Sfeir along with the League of Maronite Bishops slammed the 2000 electoral law (which reshuffled district boundaries in ways that marginalised Christian constituencies) as being unjust because it deprived the Maronite Christians from electing the MPs that truly represent them thus contributing to the “Christian frustration” (Ar. al-ihbat al-masihi). Sfeir wanted to revert to the old district-wise voting and denounced the governates because they favour the numerical dominance of Muslims (Daily Star 12/05/05). The Christian candidates seeking election as MPs must do so on an electoral list composed of a Muslim leader who selects Christian (and other minority) candidates to run on the same “ticket”. Independent Christian candidates seeking Christian-only votes have little chance of being elected. Only in small religiously homogenous districts, would Christian voters be allowed to elect their “own” candidates.

The first round of elections in late May 2005 was a foregone conclusion with many of the candidates on Saad Hariri’s – Rafiq Hariri’s son and political heir – electoral list in Beirut being elected unopposed and the voter turnout was consequently very low, in reality a remake of the Christian boycott of the 1992 elections. In subsequent elections in the South, the joint Amal and Hizbollah list steamrolled the opposition. The Mount Lebanon elections showed major gains for Michel Aoun who (unique to Lebanon) had decided to co-operate with his erstwhile enemy the pro-Syrian (Maronite) Suleiman Frangieh jr. The final elections in the North again proved a major victory for the list allied with Saad Hariri whose parliamentary bloc will lead the new government overseeing an anti-Syrian majority in the parliament. Positively, the elections in Mount Lebanon and the North showed a voter turn-out of close to 50 per cent. Nonetheless, the EU Elections Observation Mission has urged Lebanon to reform its sectarian political system (Daily Star 21/06/05b) However, the re-election of Nabih Berri to the post as speaker of parliament, his fourth term in office, testifies to the longevity of clientelist politics and the problems of reforming the political system (Daily Star 29/07/05).

Post-war violence

Peace accords often do not lead to cessation of violence (Steenkamp 2005). Although the Lebanese civil war ended in 1990, there was renewed violence between the former allies Samir Geagea and Michel Aoun, illustrating the problem of “second-order” conflicts following peace accords (Atlas and Licklider 1999). In the post-war period, fierce battles also erupted along the country’s southern border with Israel in 1993 (“Operation Accountability”) and 1996 (“Operation Grapes of Wrath”) which destroyed thousands of homes (19-20,000), killed Lebanese civilians and led to a mass exodus of IDPs (300,000) from the conflict zone. In addition to these large scale battles, there were many lesser campaigns involving Hizbollah fighters. In the post-war period the attacks on Israel by Hizbollah escalated from about 100 militant operations during 1985–89, to more than 1,000 during 1990–95 and finally to close to five thousand during 1996–2000 (Hamzeh 2004: p. 89). During the same period (1982–99) the loss of militants and soldiers were roughly equal (approx. 1,200) for each of the parties (Hizbollah and the combined Israel and South Lebanese Army casualties). Following the Israeli pull-out from the southern security zone in July 2000, the number of Hizbollah’s cross-border attacks again slumped to pre-1990 levels. The cross-border war came to an end in 2000 when the Israeli forces withdrew, following Hizbollah’s long military campaign in the southern security zone (Murdon 2000). Due to the tensions along the border, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has remained as a peacekeeping force in the southern zone and recently had its mandate extended.

The political history of Lebanon is a bloody one with repeated assassinations of political leaders and rivals following inter- and intra-sectarian conflicts (Khalaf 2002; Johnson 2001). Since the ending of the civil war, Lebanon has to a considerable degree been able to put its war-thorn past behind, but there are nonetheless lingering tensions between Christians and Muslims and a resurgent sectarianism in present day Lebanon. While there has been a marked decrease in war-related violence, there is a gradual rise in sectarian attacks on civilians, officials as well as vendettas between rival Islamist groups as well as attacks targeting churches, mosques and other places of worship. There has also been a rise in targeted assassinations of politicians, political activists, religious leaders and Islamic militants. There have also been examples of abuse of power, deaths in police custody and the dubious killing of more than 20 militants in 2000 by the Lebanese army (Daily Star 10/06/05). The general lack of independent inquiry into political murders is one reason for the “return of the bomb” in post-war Lebanon as a means of settling scores and targeting rivals. In the months since Hariri’s assassination, several bombs have gone of in the predominantly Christian areas of Beirut, Jounieh and Brummana killing and injuring civilians.

In addition to the unsolved security problem in Lebanon and the possibility of Syrian interference, another reason for the frequent politically motivated murders is the Lebanese tradition for silencing political opponents by seeking outside allies, more often than not, Syrian patrons. The UN’s investigative report on Hariri’s assassination likewise stress that the government failed to fully investigate the incident and hints at Syrian involvement in the killing, citing threats from the Syrian president Bashir al-Assad against the late premier Hariri (FitzGerald Report 2005). The killing of Rafiq Hariri is only the latest unsolved political assassination that since the late 1970s has claimed the lives of a party leader (Kamal Jumblatt), a prime minister (Rashid Karami, Hariri’s predecessor), a Sunni religious leader (Grand Mufti Hassan Khalid), two presidents (Bashir Gemayel, René Moawad) and three Christian militia leaders (Tony Frangieh, Dany Chamoun and Elie Houbeika). Bombs are also used to intimidate those that oppose the Syrian stewardship of Lebanon; an example is the car bomb on 1 October 2004 which nearly killed the Druze MP Marwan Hamade, one of only four MPs to vote against the extension of president Lahoud’s term in office a month earlier. On 2 June 2005, another car bomb killed the prominent journalist and ardent Syria ­critic Samir Kassir (Daily Star 03/06/05). Less than three weeks later another Syria -critic, George Hawi, a former leader of the Lebanese Communist Party, was killed in a car bomb in Beirut (Daily Star 21/06/05a). On 12 July, the former Defence Minister and Deputy Premier Elias Murr survived a bomb attack in Beirut that claimed two lives and injured several bystanders (Daily Star 12/07/05). This was the first attack on a pro-Syrian politician and adds to the confusion surrounding the responsibility for the recent spate of devastating bomb attacks. 

Syrian suzerainty

Peace treaties involving third party enforcement are generally more stable than those without it (Walter 1997). The Syrian role in the conclusion of the Taif Agreement fortified the peace, yet the country’s subsequent tutelage of post-war Lebanon testifies to the dangers of foreign interference. According to the Taif Agreement, the Syrian forces in Lebanon, numbering about 40,000 in 1989, were to be redeployed to the Bekaa valley within two years after the agreement was implemented. In contravention of the Taif Agreement, the Syrian army remained in the country. Although the Syrian troops were reduced in successive redeployments and troop reductions , about 14,000 remained in Lebanon, most them in the Bekaa valley, at the time of Hariri’s assassination. Following Hariri’s assassination and international pressure on Syria to comply with UN resolution 1559, the troops were fully withdrawn ahead of the 30 April 2005 deadline. More difficult has been verifying the dismantling of the extensive Syrian intelligence apparatus (Ar. mukhabarat) in Lebanon which until October 2002 was headed by Maj. Gen. Ghazi Khanan (Nassif 2000).[17] Under Khanan’s tenure, the Syrian intelligence grew to become a dominant force in Lebanon with power to veto all important political decisions, selection of the president, prime minister and key minister posts and well as the candidates seeking election to the parliament. The Syrian intelligence has strongly influenced post-war elections by manipulating the electoral law, dictating the political agenda and when necessary forced the Lebanese parliament to amend the constitution in order to secure a pro-Syrian leadership (the three year extension of president Emile Lahoud’s term in office is the latest example).

The post-war period saw Syrian influence grow to unprecedented levels in Lebanon. Syria oversaw the completion of Taif Agreement and made sure that it institutionalised Syrian dominance over Lebanon (el Khazen 2003b). In post-war Lebanon, Syria has tried to portray Lebanon as fatally unstable and peace only possible through a security guarantee from Syria. Different theories have been put forward to explain the Syrian preoccupation with controlling its tiny neighbour, ranging from historical antecedents such as reviving the former “Greater Syria” (Ar. bilad al-sham), national concerns meant to preserve Syrian unity, to narrow regime interests pursued with little concern for the damage to Lebanese civilian institutions (Abukhail 1994). A fourth reason is the importance of Lebanon to Syria’s ailing economy: Lebanon provides Syria with a window into the free-market world. Lebanon’s gross national product (GNP) is more than three times that of Syria’s as is Lebanon’s per capita income (Gambill 2003b). This explains why Lebanon is an important market for Syrian products and unskilled labour. Moreover, bilateral agreements regulating the trade between the two countries favour Syrian exports even when this harms Lebanon’s domestic economy and its citizens (Baroudi 2005). This has especially hurt the agricultural sector (Gambill 2003b) and made Lebanon the temporary home to an estimated 1.4 million Syrian guest workers residing illegally in the country.[18] They neither pay taxes nor work permit fees and monopolise many unskilled professions (Gambill 2001c). Due to rising unemployment there has been increasing hostility toward Syrian workers. Following Rafiq Hariri’s assassination there has been a spate of attacks against Syrian workers and many have returned to Syria to avoid prosecution.

Prior to Raiq Hariri’s assassination there was hardly any public protest against the Syrian hegemony, except from the ultra-nationalist groups whose principal agenda is Syrian withdrawal. This was also the reason why Christian nationalists (such as Michel Aoun) rejected the Taif Agreement because it endorsed Syrian stewardship. The unique aspect of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon was that it was praised by leading Lebanese politicians as a critical factor in the country’s post-war recovery and political stability, referring to the military presence as a “necessity” for Lebanon and an “obligation” for Syria (Gambill 2004). Lebanon’s domestic and foreign policies have also been “made in Syria” on the basis that two countries share a “common destiny” (Ar. talazun al-masarayn, lit., “concordance of two paths”). The special relationship between the two “brotherly nations” was institutionalised in bilateral agreements, most importantly the Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination (TBCC) concluded in May 1991 and the Defence and Security Pact (DSP) signed in September 1991, coordinated by the Lebanon-Syria Supreme Council. The “syrianisation” of Lebanon was hence both de facto and de jure (el Khazen 2003b: p. 57). In 1994 it was predicted that “as long as Syria maintains its troops in Lebanon, and as along as the world remains indifferent, no regional or international rivals will be capable of threatening Syrian political dominance in Lebanon” (Abukhail 1994: p. 133). The murder of Rafiq Hariri and the UN Security Council resolution 1559 ended the post-war indifference to the Syrian hegemony in Lebanon but did not end the country’s influence. However, the suicide of Syria’s former kingpin in Lebanon, Interior Minister Ghazi Khanan, on 12 October, just two weeks before the UN commission inquir ing into death of Hariri were to submit their report, suggest that the Syrian regime is crumbling (Daily Star 12/10/05).

[12] Lebanese elections analyst, interview, Beirut, 2 May 2005.

[13] Former Prime Minister Selim Hoss has described in his autobiography how the new electoral was presented to him as a Syrian fait accompli and subsequently endorsed by Hoss and his cabinet despite his own misgivings about the law (Hoss cited in, el Khazen 2003b: p. 64-65).

[14] Nonetheless, Rafiq Hariri’s electoral list beat his opponents, MP Tammam Salam and former prime
minister Selim Hoss and secured 19 seats in the new parliament.

[15] Lebanese elections analyst, interview, Beirut, 2 May 2005.

[16] During the period 1992–2000 the total voter turnout was; 1992 (30%), 1996 (45%), 2000 (40%). The Christian share of the vote was only half of the total voter turnout (15%, 22% and 20%), see (Picard 2002: p. 176).

[17] Following his successful tenure as intelligence chief, Khanan was promoted to his current post as Syrian interior minister and replaced by Rustum Ghazzali (ICG 2005: p. 28).

[18] The official estimates of the numbers of numbers of Syrian guest-workers are much lower. The Lebanese
Ministry of Labour has estimated the total number at 300,000–500,000 (ICG 2005: p. 13). It should be kept in mind that cheap Syrian labour meant great savings for their Lebanese employers.