New challengers to Lebanon’s sectarian parties

Municipal elections this month will be first test for Beirut Madinati and Citizens Within a State, who are focusing on the existing powers' failure to tackle longstanding problems.

Lebanese women wave the national flag and hold placards as they take part in a protest in Beirut on March 12, 2016, against corruption and the garbage crisis. Patrick Baz / AFP

BEIRUT // In Lebanon’s fragmented political system, power has long been monopolised by powerful sectarian parties that ensure loyalty through clientelism.

In times of need, they hand out cash and favours to their constituents. In times of war, they had out weapons. For many in the country, who you vote for – if you vote at all – is determined by where you are born, your sect and your family name.

Elections are not about issues or charismatic candidates. They are about the show of force and loyalty to sectarian parties, nearly all of them headed by former warlords.

Like the perennially flickering electricity grid, the failure to elect a president for nearly two years and the whiff of rotting, uncleared refuse on a summer night, it is an accepted fact of life in Lebanon.

During municipal elections that begin on Sunday, however, as Lebanese vote in their first polls in six years, the sectarian parties will be challenged.

Beirut Madinati, which translates to Beirut My City, and Citizens Within a State are two new, non-sectarian parties that will fight for municipal council seats against the sectarian parties in Beirut. The basic premise behind both groups is the same: to provide an alternative to the sectarian parties that have been seen as ineffective in dealing with Lebanon’s problems.

Beirut Madinati is focused solely on Beirut, where it is fielding a list of technocrats, activists and artists to fill the 24-seat council. Their programme focuses on improving traffic, creating public spaces, affordable housing, fixing a nine-month-old waste management crisis and preserving the city’s architectural and natural heritage.

Citizens Within a State plans to field candidates for at least 30 of Lebanon’s more than 1,000 municipal councils being elected this month. It hopes to progress from a municipal level to a national level in encouraging citizens to break away from sectarian politics.

Due to the winner-take-all nature of the municipal elections – where the candidates who garner the most votes win and parties are allowed to field a candidate for every seat – most parties run a full list of candidates. Citizens Within a State is choosing to field only a few candidates in the contests it enters, which means it will not be able to control municipalities even if all its candidates win.

“We are not after winning municipalities per se – we are after creating a political movement,” explained Haidar Mahmoud, a representative of the group. “We are betting that this movement will create a momentum. It doesn’t have to come and materialise in one shot in the municipal elections – that’s not how things operate in the political arena. But gathering steam one person at a time will eventually coalesce all these citizens into such a movement.”

Confidence in the national and local governments is at a low, and Beirut Madinati and Citizens Within a State hope this will translate into votes.

The Lebanese “have all witnessed the current practice’s results: we are now in paralysis in all of our government institutions … our economy is going back, our children are leaving the country”, said Ibrahim Mneimneh, a Beirut Madinati candidate who is tapped to be the city’s mayor if his party wins the majority of seats on the council.

“I think people have had enough and they know it is time for change.”

Analysts agree that non-sectarian parties stand a better chance in this year’s elections than they would have previously.

“The traditional parties have failed in delivering services to the people, they have failed to improve the city, our situation seems to be degenerating as long as they stay in power,” said Sami Atallah, director of the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies. “An organisation or movement like Beirut Madinati is actually the first time people have an alternative to vote for.”

Ramez Dagher, a Lebanese blogger who focuses on politics, agreed.

“We’ve had several corruption scandals recently, a nine-month trash crisis and political deadlock and vacancy. These events combined are likely going to encourage people to vote with a third choice rather than stick with the traditional [parties],” he said. Beirut Madinati, which Mr Dagher backs, is “giving the city everything the current establishment did not, at a time when the establishment is hated the most”.

To Beirutis, few things appear more mismanaged than the rubbish-collection crisis which saw refuse piled up in the streets for weeks before makeshift dumps were created in the city. Traffic snarls that seem to get worse every year, allegations of government corruption, a lack of public spaces, chronic shortages of water and electricity, rising housing costs and a seeming indifference to the destruction of the city's rich cultural heritage are among the other frustrations.

But despite the widespread perception that the country’s leaders have failed its citizens, the new alternatives still face an uphill battle.

Sectarian parties continue to command strong loyalty, at times cultivated in families over generations. For voters from families that are entrenched in the sectarian system or the benefits they get from the parties, breaking away is difficult.

Past movements against sectarian politics have failed.

When the rubbish crisis began in July, it prompted protests that eventually morphed into a campaign against the government, its sectarian parties, corruption and a host of other ills in the country. Despite crippling central Beirut time after time, the protesters failed to get either the national or local government to act on the rubbish issue, let alone overthrow sectarianism. Eventually the movement petered out.

In 2011 an anti-sectarianism movement inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings saw a similar flash of enthusiasm before it too collapsed.

Beirut Madinati and Citizens Within a State will also need to work hard to get people out to vote. In Beirut's 2010 municipal elections, voter turnout was only about 20 per cent. This year, many Beirutis The National spoke to said they were not planning to vote. There may be a lot of buzz in the press and on social media, but many have never heard of Beirut Madinati or Citizens Within a State.

Abdul Kareem Al Sarouh, 70, has lived in the capital for nearly five decades but can only vote in his hometown of Tyre under the election laws.

“If I was from Beirut, I’d never vote for Saad Hariri,” he said, referring to the leader of the Sunni-backed Future Movement, whose members currently rule the municipality.

“After the war, they took this place from the Lebanese people and built their own places,” he added as he stood on Beirut’s corniche, one of the few nice public spaces in the city. He was referring to Solidere, a company founded by Mr Hariri’s late father that redrew the map of central Beirut after the 1975-1990 civil war and prioritised high-end private developments.

“It’s pointless to vote, you can’t change things here,” said Ziad Bouhairi, a 23-year-old engineering student.

Ziad and his friend Khaled, another engineering student, said they would choose Beirut Madinati if they were voting. They say they want technocrats, not politicians picked by sectarian parties.

The pair were part of last year’s anti-government protests, but became disillusioned when they saw sectarian parties increasingly sway the movement. They are afraid Beirut Madinati will suffer similar divisions or be hijacked by sectarian powers.

“They own all the money in the country. They own the media. They own the police. They own everything – they are a mafia,” said Khaled, who did not disclose his surname.

Like other young men The National spoke to, Mr Bouhairi and Khaled said they had been offered small sums of money by various sectarian parties for their loyalty in the upcoming elections.

“They rob us for their whole terms and then they try to buy us with $100,” said Mr Bouhairi.

While they want to see change in Lebanon, they are increasingly sceptical it is possible.

“You lose hope,” said Mr Bouhairi, who is looking to move to the West.