To reform Lebanon’s political system, its new leaders need to re-examine the Taif Accord

People in the southern Lebanese town of Aishiyeh dance to celebrate the election of their native Joseph Aoun as President. AFP

More than three decades ago, not long after the constitutional amendments included in the Taif Accord were approved by the Lebanese Parliament, a centre focused on peace and reconstruction in Lebanon organised a seminar in Washington to discuss the country’s future. One of the participants was Nawaf Salam. While Mr Salam supported Taif, he made astute observations about the problems he saw looming in its implementation.

Now, years later, Mr Salam is hitting up against Taif’s shortcomings – or to be more accurate, against the obstacles and improvisations that have been consciously imposed on a constitutional accord that was hijacked by Lebanon’s political class since its inception and emptied of all meaning. What is in place is no longer a summation of various valid reform proposals first enunciated in 1976, during Lebanon’s civil war, but a mishmash of innovations that has turned the post-Taif constitution into a monster.

As Mr Salam, Lebanon’s prime minister-designate, struggles to put together a government, he is having to deal with the demands and criticism of all parties, in a political system now defined by a division of the spoils among the country’s political factions. Many of these factions claim to oppose the political spoils system that has bankrupted and impaired Lebanon, but all of them insist on their right to secure a share of the pie.

This situation has ensured that Lebanon is incapable of truly progressing. The country is a prisoner of a systemic form of dysfunction, and the only way out is to replace Taif, or rather this ghastly version of Taif, with something else. Ironically, such a process must begin by going back to the original agreement itself and using it as a basis to start anew.

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The most significant dimension of Taif that was never implemented was the accord’s call for the deconfessionalisation of politics. Instead, what replaced it was a political system that, on the contrary, came to hyper-fortify sectarianism, distributing everything in the state according to religious sect, and inventing new sectarian practices with no basis in the Constitution, making the system ungovernable.

As agreed in 1989, Taif accompanied the call for political deconfessionalisation with steps designed to reassure the Christian minority, which had lost the most in Taif. The Maronite Christian presidency saw many of its powers reduced, but to compensate for this, those negotiating Taif inserted a section on administrative decentralisation, giving Christians (and all communities) more latitude to run their own affairs.

At the same time, in order to partially offset removing sectarian quotas from Parliament, the parliamentarians in Taif agreed to establish a senate “in which all religious communities shall be represented”, and whose authority “shall be limited to major national issues”. The terminology was vague, but the idea behind it was not: when it came to fundamental issues, all communities would have an equal voice.

If Lebanon removes the albatross of sectarian representation, it will, presumably, be easier to open the door to better-qualified people in government, since the sectarian parties will no longer be able to use sect as justification to place their partisans in positions of authority. At the same time, if more powers are devolved to the different regions, there is likely to be greater accountability because local decisions will address everyday issues, on which voters are more liable to react at election time.

Taif mentioned broad administrative decentralisation, but not specifically financial decentralisation. This has to be changed. There is no point in handing powers to local or regional representative bodies if funds generated locally or regionally are not spent in those localities. This has long been a demand within the Christian community, and President Joseph Aoun’s call for a broad form of decentralisation in his inaugural address may mean he intends to encompass financial decentralisation.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, centre, meets Speaker Nabih Berri, left, and prime minister-designate Nawaf Salam in Baabda, Lebanon earlier this month. EPA

Equally important in the current Lebanese context is the need to end the so-called Shiite exception that has contributed to many of the unconstitutional fabrications that have crippled Taif. The reason for this is that Hezbollah and its ally the Amal Movement, which is headed by Speaker Nabih Berri, have often imposed unjustified interpretations of the Constitution in order to protect their political interests.

A leading aim of Hezbollah has been retaining its weapons, against the will of a vast majority of Lebanese. This has created an abnormal situation in which one dominant party, and by extension the community it represents, has retained the power to intimidate. But this has also generated a paradoxical sense of insecurity among supporters of Hezbollah and Amal. Without weapons, they believe, the Shiite community may be decisively weakened.

Hezbollah’s losses in the war with Israel, like the Bashar Al Assad government’s downfall in Syria, have heightened such a sense of vulnerability. In this context, deconfessionalisation of the political system could expand Shiite representation, reassuring the community. But this cannot occur before Hezbollah disarms, which is why any change in the political system must take place in parallel with an understanding with the Shiite community on Hezbollah’s arms.

Lebanon’s political system, as it stands today, is simply not working anymore, and it’s certainly not reinforcing a sense of national harmony and co-existence. Taif had many problems, but also, ironically, offers a path out of the impasses its misinterpretation has created. That’s why the accord must be revisited and expanded if Lebanon is to have a chance of becoming a functional country, and not remain a failing state.