‘Last hope’: Lebanese abroad seek a say at polls | Elections News

Beirut, Lebanon – Before mass protests against Lebanon’s ruling elite swept the country in October 2019, Yasmin Saad would never have thought that she would be particularly committed to the politics of her home country.

But two years later, the 22-year-old marketing student decided to register for next year’s general election while observing a series of worsening crises from France that plagued millions of Lebanese.

“I think it’s one last chance – or one last hope,” Saad told Al Jazeera from Marseille. “What really, really got me to vote were the days when everyone protested in the street – and we had our own protests and gatherings in France.”

She is not alone. More than 210,000 Lebanese living abroad met the deadline on Saturday and registered for the March 27 elections – more than twice as many expats who registered for the previous elections in 2018.

Millions of Lebanese have left the country in the past few decades, taking their skills and talents abroad to seek better opportunities in the face of instability, deadlocked corruption and financial mismanagement. While there are no clear figures, many estimates suggest that more live abroad than in the tiny country itself, home to around 6.5 million people, including Lebanese and refugees.

Lebanese abroad were allowed to vote for the first time in 2018 under a new electoral law, which also provided for six new seats in parliament to represent the diaspora in the 2022 election. However, independent political parties and many expats disagreed with the addition, arguing that it was a way to isolate the diaspora from local constituencies. Last month MPs turned down those six seats, which means expats will be voting for the existing 128 seats in May.

In October 2019, mass protests against a ruling elite of sectarian parties and private sector cronies who had been gaining a foothold in the country for several decades spread across Lebanon. Lebanese people in dozens of cities around the world held similar protests at home in solidarity with youth-led demonstrations and added their voice to calls for a revision of the sectarian power-sharing system in Lebanon, which has led to widespread nepotism.

Since then, the crisis has worsened, with Lebanon’s national currency losing around 90 percent of its value against the US dollar. Around three quarters of the population live in poverty and, in the absence of sustainable social programs, are heavily dependent on charity and aid.

Public anger against the ruling elite reached new heights in August 2020 when a massive explosion in the port of Beirut razed several quarters of the capital, killing more than 200 people and wounding thousands. Lebanese people abroad organized numerous charity campaigns to support local aid organizations to help families in need secure medicine, heating and rent.

Saad said the past two years have pushed her and her friends to support independent candidates who have pledged to challenge the status quo.

“For once, we were all united to simply change and want a better future,” Saad said. “I realized that these elections might be different.”

And independent political forces have noticed.

Mark Daou is running in the mountainous Chouf-Aley area for Taqaddom, a party he co-founded, which he describes as “progressive” and “social democratic”.

He said voter turnout in the diaspora was a promising development and reflected greater enthusiasm among Lebanese expats to take the polls.

“We were able to contact several Lebanese – but they actually contacted us, which is even better,” said Daou Al Jazeera on the phone as he left for France on Friday after finishing a meeting with Lebanese living in Germany. “They asked us, ‘Do you want to do this? Shall we sign up? [to vote]? ‘”

Power sharing system

Edy Semaan left Lebanon in 2017 to do his Masters in the United States and currently works as a communications specialist in Washington, DC. He did not vote in the last election in Lebanon four years ago, but this time he plans to take time off from work and go home early to support the campaigns of independent parties in the run-up to the elections.

“I am Pro-Thawra [revolution]“Semaan said proudly to Al Jazeera.

Still, he admitted that he did not expect a major parliamentary overhaul, citing the financial firepower and clientelist network of ruling parties in dozens of countries – the traditional political powers of Lebanon have sustained support for their supporters in the country for decades Diaspora invests, many of whom have become financiers.

“I don’t think the diaspora is going to make that much of a difference this election season, but I think it will help bring some new faces to Parliament,” said Semaan, arguing that it will take years that are “deep End Rooted Corruption ”in Lebanon.

Ibrahim Halawi, foreign minister for Citizens in a State, an independent party that announced last week that it would take part in the vote, claimed that “there is no such thing as a ‘diaspora’.

“It completely wipes out the long-term existence of sectarian organizations in the diaspora,” he told Al Jazeera.

For his part, Daou said he hoped independent political parties and opposition groups could secure “10 to 20 percent” of the parliamentary seats.

On paper it would look like an insignificant break. But in reality it could be a major breakthrough as Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system, which allocates seats to different sects in different districts, poses a major hurdle for independent candidates.

Therefore, building an electoral base for a district is not just about attracting the most qualified and suitable candidate, but also finding like-minded people from certain sects in their respective districts.

Lebanon’s ruling elite – from the Iran-backed Shiite movement Hezbollah to the Saudi Arabia-backed Christian party, the Lebanese Armed Forces – have long used this unique system of power-sharing and have managed to establish political strongholds in certain parts of the country claim.

Nonetheless, anti-establishment movements and political parties have continuously sought to win back professional syndicates, trade unions and student movements. Last summer, independent political groups won the Engineers’ Syndicate election, one of the largest in the country.

“Fight to distribute the losses”

The parliamentary elections come at a crucial time for ailing Lebanon.

The current government of Prime Minister Najib Mikati faces a handful of obstacles to getting the country back on track. It has prioritized resuming talks with the International Monetary Fund over a bailout that would free up billions of dollars in credit and economic aid.

While the country’s central bank and commercial banks have lobbied the government to make sure they are not being overburdened by the recovery plan, Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty, recently criticized them for the fact that they played their part in the the crisis due to their bad practices and the management of the depositor’s savings.

With this in mind, Halawi of Citizens in a State said that even some new lawmakers will be able to defend themselves against the influence of the country’s broken financial system and ensure that the millions of Lebanese already battered do not also carry additional financial burdens the recovery phase.

“It’s a fight to distribute the losses,” he said.

“This is historically the moment society should be entitled to universal health care and education. Then the banks and the crooked elites are weakest. We have to hit them hard to get what we want. “

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/11/20/last-hope-lebanese-abroad-seek-say-at-polls