BEIRUT: Thousands of Lebanese will head to the voting booths next Sunday to take part in the country’s overdue parliamentary elections — but many will also stay at home, blaming a lack of confidence in the political and electoral system for their ambivalence toward the vote.
The elections will be the first to take place in the country in nine years, but instead of universal excitement many Lebanese have become increasingly cynical.
“What’s the point of voting if we know it’s not going to make a difference,” Michael, a 25-year old engineer, told Arab News.
“It’s all rigged, the politicians at the top of the pyramid will stay in power, regardless of whether I vote or not,” he said.
Lebanese politics is dominated by sectarian divides, powerful clans and a confessional system that divides the main positions of power among the different religious groups. Nearly a quarter of the 128 seats are expected to be passed on from an older relative to another member of the family. Just less than 55 percent of those eligible to vote turned out in 2009 and while it is impossible to gauge the figure this time, many young Lebanese told Arab News they would not be voting. They pointed to the failings of the government, particularly in providing basic services since the 2009 election. Others are highly skeptical because of the levels of corruption among public officials.
On the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index for 2017-2018, Lebanon ranked 123 out of 137 countries in terms of ethics and corruption and 128 in the public’s trust in its politicians, with countries such as Nigeria and Zimbabwe sitting below it.
Earlier this month, Sylvana Al-Lakkis, a member of the 11-person Electoral Supervisory Committee, resigned due to the “inability of the committee to perform its duties,” she told local media. The committee’s role is to ensure the transparency and fairness of the electoral campaign.
The Lebanese government has invited several international and local bodies to watch over the electoral process, including the EU. Representatives have been monitoring campaigns both on the street and on social media, as well as financial activities since the beginning of the month.
“Our 24 long-term observers were deployed around the country on April 10 and they have been reporting their findings to us,” Jose Antonio De Gabriel, the deputy chief observer of the EU’s election observer mission to Lebanon, told Arab News.
“On election day we will have more than 100 observers, including short-term observers, on the ground.”
The EU previously sent election observation missions to monitor Lebanese elections in 2005 and 2009.
“We are making a modest contribution to this democratic exercise in Lebanon, which we do by measuring the process for the 2018 elections against the country’s own law and the international obligations that Lebanon has committed itself to,” De Gabriel said. The Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE) is also taking part in the monitoring.
“On election day, we will have 1,200 short-term observers deployed, who monitor the process from the beginning at 7 a.m. until they close the doors, and of course they also monitor the count, after which we issue our reports,” Hanine Shabshoul, the communication and media coordinator at LADE, told Arab News.
Apart from deploying observers on the ground, LADE is also monitoring candidates’ official social media accounts and is developing a mobile application that allows observers and citizens to directly report any violations they witness.
Bodies such as the EU and LADE, however, cannot themselves order the arrests of violators; they can only issue remarks and recommendations to Lebanon’s Interior Ministry and Supervisory Commission for Elections.
“If there are any alleged violations, our observers report it to our analysts in our HQ in Beirut. We check and double-check the facts and then feed this into our overall analysis,” De Gabriel said. LADE issued a statement last month explaining how government officials were “repeatedly exploiting their powers for electoral purposes.”
Monitoring does not only occur for those in Lebanon, with a large Lebanese diaspora set to take part in the voting process for the first time.
“We will be carrying out observation of out-of-country voting on April 29 in 10 European countries, focusing in particular on Germany and France, where the biggest concentrations of Lebanese nationals (in Europe) are to be found,” he said.
France and Germany house 8,541 and 8,523 voters respectively, while the highest concentration of voters lie in Australia and Canada with more than 12,000 and 11,500 voters respectively, according to Information International, a Beirut-based research and consultancy firm.
While monitoring bodies will be going over the election process and highlighting any violations they see, many wonder whether enough is being done to prevent corruption from sinking its teeth into the election process and the results that follow.
“You can declare the elections corrupt before election day begins,” Boutros Koussa, a 38-year old car mechanic, told Arab News. “Until monitoring bodies can control ‘the buying of votes,’ the voting process shall remain corrupt,” he said.
Officials ‘exploiting power’ ahead of vote, Lebanon poll monitors warn
Officials ‘exploiting power’ ahead of vote, Lebanon poll monitors warn
- The Lebanese government has invited several international and local bodies to watch over the electoral process.
- Boutros Koussa said “Until monitoring bodies can control ‘the buying of votes,’ the voting process shall remain corrupt”.
Erdogan ally wants pro-Kurdish party, jailed militant to talk
- The pro-Kurdish DEM Party, parliament’s third largest, responded by applying for its co-chairs to meet with Ocalan, founder of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
ANKARA: A key ally of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan expanded on his proposal to end 40 years of conflict with Kurdish militants by proposing on Tuesday that parliament’s pro-Kurdish party holds direct talks with the militants’ jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, made the call a month after suggesting that Ocalan announce an end to the insurgency in exchange for the possibility of his release.
The pro-Kurdish DEM Party, parliament’s third largest, responded by applying for its co-chairs to meet with Ocalan, founder of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Erdogan described Bahceli’s initial proposal as a “historic window of opportunity” but has not spoken of any peace process.
Ocalan has been held in a prison on the island of Imrali, south of Istanbul, since his capture 25 years ago.
“We expect face-to-face contact between Imrali and the DEM group to be made without delay, and we resolutely reiterate our call,” Bahceli told his party’s lawmakers in a parliamentary meeting, using the name of the island to refer to Ocalan.
Bahceli regularly condemns pro-Kurdish politicians as tools of the PKK.
DEM’s predecessor party was involved in peace talks between Ankara and Ocalan a decade ago. Gulistan Kilic Kocyigit, DEM’s parliamentary group chairperson, said it applied to the Justice Ministry on Tuesday for its leaders to meet Ocalan.
“We are ready to make every contribution for a democratic solution to the Kurdish issue and the democratization of Turkiye,” she said.
Turkiye and its Western allies call the PKK a terrorist group. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the fighting, which in the past was focused in the mainly Kurdish southeast but is now centered on northern Iraq, where the PKK is based.
Growing regional instability and changing political dynamics are seen as factors behind the bid to end the conflict with the PKK. The chances of success are unclear as Ankara has given no clues on what it may entail.
The only concrete move so far has been Ankara’s permission for Ocalan’s nephew to visit him, the first family visit in 4-1/2 years.
Authorities are continuing to crack down on alleged PKK activities. Early on Tuesday, police detained 231 people of suspected PKK ties, the interior ministry said. DEM Party said those detained included its local officials and activists.
Earlier this month, the government replaced five pro-Kurdish mayors in southeastern cities for similar reasons, in a move that drew criticism from DEM and others.
Algeria holds writer Boualem Sansal on national security charges: lawyer
Sansal had been interrogated by “anti-terrorist” prosecutors and said he was being “deprived of his freedom on the grounds of his writing“
PARIS: Algerian authorities have remanded in custody on national security charges prominent French-Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal following his arrest earlier this month that sparked alarm throughout the literary world, his French lawyer said on Tuesday.
“Boualem Sansal... was today placed in detention” on the basis of an article of the Algerian penal code “which punishes all attacks on state security,” lawyer Francois Zimeray said in a statement to AFP.
He added that Sansal had been interrogated by “anti-terrorist” prosecutors and said he was being “deprived of his freedom on the grounds of his writing.”
Sansal, a major figure in francophone modern literature, is known for his strong stances against both authoritarianism and Islamism, as well as being a forthright campaigner on freedom of expression issues.
His detention by Algeria comes against a background of tensions between France and its former colony, which also appear to have spread to the literary world.
The 75-year-old writer, granted French nationality this year, was on November 16 arrested at Algiers airport after returning from France, according to several media reports.
The Gallimard publishing house, which has published his work for a quarter of a century, in a statement expressed “its very deep concern following the arrest of the writer by the Algerian security services,” calling for his “immediate release.”
A relative latecomer to writing, Sansal turned to novels in 1999 and has tackled subjects including the horrific 1990s civil war between authorities and Islamists.
His books are not banned in Algeria but he is a controversial figure, particularly since making a visit to Israel in 2014.
Sansal’s hatred of Islamism has not been confined to Algeria and he has also warned of a creeping Islamization in France, a stance that has made him a favored author of prominent figures on the right and far-right.
In 2015, Sansal won the Grand Prix du Roman of the French Academy, the guardians of the French language, for his book “2084: The End of the World,” a dystopian novel inspired by George Orwell’s “Nineteen-Eighty Four” and set in an Islamist totalitarian world in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.
The concerns about his reported arrest come as another prominent French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud is under attack over his novel “Houris,” which won France’s top literary prize, the Goncourt.
A woman has claimed the book was based on her story of surviving 1990s Islamist massacres and used without her consent.
She alleged on Algerian television that Daoud used the story she confidentially recounted to a therapist — who is now his wife — during treatment. His publisher has denied the claims.
The controversies are taking place in a tense diplomatic context between France and Algeria, after President Emmanuel Macron renewed French support for Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara during a landmark visit to the kingdom last month.
Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, is de facto controlled for the most part by Morocco.
But it is claimed by the Sahrawi separatists of the Polisario Front, who are demanding a self-determination referendum and are supported by Algiers.
Daoud organized a petition signed by fellow literary luminaries published in the Le Point weekly calling for Sansal’s “immediate” release.
“This tragic news reflects an alarming reality in Algeria, where freedom of expression is nothing more than a memory in the face of repression, imprisonment and the surveillance of the entire society,” said the letter also signed by the likes of British novelist Salman Rushdie and Turkish Nobel winner Orhan Pamuk.
Winter rain piles misery on Gaza’s displaced
GAZA CITY: At a crowded camp in Gaza for those displaced by the war between Israel and Hamas, Ayman Siam laid concrete blocks around his tent to keep his family dry as rain threatened more misery.
“I’m trying to protect my tent from the rainwater because we are expecting heavy rain. Three days ago when it rained, we were drenched,” Siam said, seeking to shield his children and grandchildren from more wet weather.
Siam is among thousands sheltering at Gaza City’s Yarmouk sports stadium in the north after being uprooted by the Israel-Hamas war.
He lives in one of many flimsy tents set up at the stadium, where the pitch has become a muddy field dotted with puddles left by rainfall that washed away belongings and shelters.
People in the stadium dug small trenches around their tents, covered them with plastic sheets, and did whatever they could to stop the water from entering their makeshift homes.
Others used spades to direct the water into drains, as grey skies threatened more rain.
The majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced, often multiple times.
With many displaced living in tent camps, the coming winter is raising serious concerns.
Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza’s civil defense agency, said that “tens of thousands of displaced people, especially in the central and south of Gaza Strip, are suffering from flooded tents due to the rains,” and called on the international community to provide tents and aid.
International aid organizations have sounded the alarm about the deteriorating situation as winter approaches.
“It’s going to be catastrophic,” warned Louise Wateridge, an emergency officer for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees currently in Gaza.
The rainy period in Gaza lasts between late October and April, with January being the wettest month, averaging 30 to 40 millimeters of rain. Winter temperatures can drop as low as 6 degrees Celsius. Recent rain has flooded hundreds of tents.
“The rain and seawater flooded all the tents. We are helpless. The water took everything from the tent, including the mattresses, blankets and a water jug. We were only able to get a mattress and blankets for the children,” said Auni Al-Sabea, a displaced person.
Lebanese Prime Minister demands ‘immediate’ implementation of ceasefire
- Mikati said the intense wave of Israeli air strikes on Beirut on Tuesday “reaffirms that the Israeli enemy has no regard for any law or consideration"
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati demanded in a statement on Tuesday that the international community “act swiftly” to halt Israeli aggression “and implement an immediate ceasefire.”
His comments came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an address that his security cabinet would agree “this evening” on a truce deal in its war against Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Mikati said the intense wave of Israeli air strikes on Beirut on Tuesday “reaffirms that the Israeli enemy has no regard for any law or consideration.”
“The international community is called upon to act swiftly to stop this aggression and implement an immediate ceasefire,” he said in his statement, which was issued before a strike hit the central Hamra commercial district.
Israeli ‘aggression’ targets Syria’s Homs countryside, state news agency says
- Blasts had been heard in the vicinity of Homs city and that the cause was under investigation
HOMS: Initial reports indicate that an Israeli “aggression” targeted two villages in northern and western areas of Syria’s Homs province, the Syrian state news agency said on Tuesday.
Earlier, Syrian state television said blasts had been heard in the vicinity of Homs city and that the cause was under investigation.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel by Hamas-led militants.
