Lebanon's tainted parliament
THREE-STAGE parliamentary elections took place in
Lebanon - each stage corresponding to a different for the first stage for the retreat of Syrian forces from Lebanon, Beirut and the mountains to the Bekaa Valley.
Damascus obstinately demanded the elections be over by the beginning of September, in spite of the parade of Lebanese governmental leaders and other political figures travelling to the Syrian capital to implore Hafez el-Assad to soften his position. Having failed to convince the Syrian president, the elections took place as planned in spite of the boycott called by the Christian opposition. The voting in the regions that were politically dominated by the Christian opposition was ridiculously low.2 This, added to the weak enthusiasm of the population of all religions for elections called by decree and the low turnout of registered voters on (in any case highly suspect) electoral lists puts a question mark over the results.3
There is no doubt that the new Parliament formed out of these elections is unrepresentative of the real political composition of the population. Furthermore, its legitimacy is directly contested by an important fraction of the religious-political establishment - which was not true for the preceding parliament despite its 20year sitting. To top it all off, the great powers have not recognized the legitimacy of the new assembly for the sep same reasons. In HO a word, this is perhaps the first N° time that a regime has lost its "legitimacy" as a result of having held elections. Given this, it is worth wondering about the reasons why the Syrian regime felt the need to intervene so blatantly and to the detriment of its Lebanese vassals. For after all, Syrian hegemony in Lebanon does not strictly depend on the direct presence of Damascus' troops on Lebanese soil. This was seen between 1982 and 1987 when Syrian troops had to evacuate Beirut and the mountains following the Israeli invasion. This did not stop Hafez el-Assad 1. See International Viewpoint no. 193, October 29, 1992. General Aoun is a Lebanese Christian militia leader who launched an ill-fated "war of liberation" against the Syrians in March 1989. 2. In one constituency in the Christian mountain trea the election had to be postponed for lack of candidates. 3. Damascus' key henchman in Lebanon, interior minister Sami el-Khatib, was not above fixing the results of the election in his own electoral district. He thus deserves the title "minister of the interior of ballot boxes" conferred on him by a Lebanese comedian.
electoral district - between
They were the first elections since 1972.
SALAH JABER
P
ARLIAMENTARY life in
Lebanon during these last 20 years - 17 spent in the shadow of war — has not been completely suspended, as one might imagine it would be. The 1972 parliament simply continued through the years with the inevitable result that the average age of its members increased significantly as they became increasingly representative only of themselves.
The Taef agreement (named after the
Saudi Arabian city where it was signed) of
1990, made under the aegis of the American,
Saudi and
Syrian governments, laid out the political conditions for an end to the crisis created by the murderous rampages of General
Aoun.' As a result, some deputies were co-opted into Parliament
Militia chiefs and the various henchmen of
Damascus thus entered parliament by the back door.
As one can imagine, a parliament produced by the dual processes of prolongation and cooptation was wholly lacking in democratic legitimacy.
Undemocratic parliament
But the new parliament is even more undemocratic. The legitimacy of these elections was challenged a priori by a significant proportion of the forces and personalities of Lebanese politics. The forces that can be labelled the "reactionary
Christian camp", that is, the proto-fascist
Lebanese militia tied to Israel, the Phalange tied to the American embassy and the partisans of General Aoun, a political refu-
20 gee sheltered by the French government
August 21 and September 6. for the Lebanese parliament that was his main source of support, also challenged the legitimacy of these elections for several reasons, the most important being that they took place in the presence, and under the influence, of the Syrian army.
Of course it is easy to point out that these gentlemen have in the past been so concerned with national sovereignty that they supported the two presidential elections (in Lebanon the president is elected by the Parliament) held under Syrian bayonets in 1976 and under Israeli rifles in 1982. But the lack of credibility of those raising the arguments does not remove all validity from them.
It would be naive indeed to believe that the Syrian regime, whose competence in matters of parliamentary democracy is well known, could supervise these elections without intervening. The first sign of Syrian meddling involved the choice of dates for the elections. The fact that the rump Beirut government refused to postpone these even for two or three weeks to allow at least part of the "reactionary Christian camp" to justify its participation in the eyes of the electorate — subjected to intensified pressure from General Aoun's partisans — is incomprehensible unless we take into account that such a postponement would have seen the elections re-scheduled to a date after that set by the Taef accords
International Viewpoint # 236 • October 12, 1992
from holding up the ratification of the Israeli-Lebanese treaty in May 1983, signed under the aegis of the United States and in the presence of the Zionist army on a large part of Lebanese territory. Nor did it stop them from radically changing positions from 1984 onwards — that is, a year before the Israeli withdrawal towards the border.
### Syrian hegemony
Damascus can exercise its hegemony over the Lebanese political scene through its influence over the majority of the coun try's political forces beholden to Damascus through a mix of fear and self-interest. Syrian hegemony over Lebanon is a mix of unsubtle "big brother" methods, reminiscent of the relationship between Moscow and its former East European satellites, and "godfather" methods in the crudest Sicilian tradition.
In reality, Syria's attitude was determined by international factors. The Syrian regime was entirely dependent on Moscow on the military level, the Soviet Union being its main source of arms. Gorbachev's capitulation to Washington led Hafez el-Assad to seek aid from the same source by joining in the anti-Iraqi crusade in 1990-1991. This was not the first time that he had sought to establish an alliance with the United States, but he had never been prepared to go so far. Of course he was also motivated by Kuwaiti and Saudi petro-dollars. But the main motivation was his realization that there was little left to be gained from Moscow - a conclusion that he drew before the USSR's spectacular collapse. When that collapse did come, it was clear that he made the right choice.
However, the Syrian regime is not in a position to establish close reciprocal relations with the United States for the obvious reason of its conflict with Israel, Washington's closest ally in the mid-East, if not in the world. The growing animosity between the Bush administration and the Shamir government in Israel made things easier for Hafez el-Assad who was thrilled to be able to show that he could be more docile towards Washington than the "spoiled child" figure that Shamir cut in the course of the Israeli-Arab negotiations a year ago.
But two factors have intervened since them: on the one hand, Washington's attitude towards the Zionist state has warmed up following Rabin's victory in last June's elections. The latter was even able to obtain US support for the $10bn in credits that Shamir failed to win and in doing so got the United States to give up its main means of pressure over Israel. The other element is the perspective of a Clinton victory in the November presidential elections in the US - the Democratic candidate is one of the most ferociously pro-Israel American politicians.
Faced with such uncertainty in the short term, the leaders in Damascus are driven to consolidate their hold over their principal card in their relations with Washington -Lebanon. The other card - the threat of an alliance with Iraq — is, given the balance of forces, too risky, as an expert in realpolitik like Hafez el-Assad knows full well. He has therefore decided to concentrate on Lebanon, fully aware that, in the middle of an electoral campaign, Bush has other things to worry about. It was under similar circumstances and with the same urgency that the same Syrian regime launched a big offensive against Lebanon in the fall of 1976, on the eve of a likely defeat of Republican president Gerald Ford, with whom Damascus had reached an agreement, at the hands of the Democrat Jimmy Carter. In these circumstances it would be unwise to count on Syrian compliance with the 1990 accords calling for the withdrawal of its troops. Martial lan
LEBANON / PHILIPPINES
Once again the vagaries of world politics concerning the region will be played out in Lebanon - that unfortunate theatre of proxy wars. In this situation, constantly "over determined" by exogenous factors, the call by democrats (yes, they still exist!) for elections for a constituent assembly elected on a proportional basis with single electoral districts to counterbalance the weight of clericalism, provincialism and various militias has little credibility. Power in Lebanon, as elsewhere, comes not out of a ballot box but from the barrel of a gun — a Syrian gun. The fate of Lebanon is decided in Damascus. And any qualitative change in the Lebanese situation depends on as yet unforeseeable changes in Syria.