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”.
Dead or alive? Scores missing after paramilitary group’s attacks in Sudan’s Al-Jazira state
- Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo's paramilitary RSF has been accused of killing people and "looting property including from markets and hospitals”
- Amnesty International said the RSF had gone berserk in eastern Al-Jazira state after a high-ranking officer defected to the national army
NEW HALFA, Sudan: Khadir Ali and his family managed to survive a harrowing paramilitary attack in war-torn Sudan. But by the time they got to safety, he realized that one person was missing.
“We escaped in total chaos — there was gunfire coming from every direction,” said the 47-year-old civil servant of the October 22 Rapid Support Forces attack on Rufaa in Al-Jazira state.
“But once we got out of the city, we noticed my nephew wasn’t with us,” he said.
Mohammed, 17, suffers from a congenital skin condition and “needs special care.”
The teenager is among scores of people reported missing as the RSF stages major attacks across eastern Al-Jazira state after a high-ranking officer from the area defected to the army.
In retaliation, the RSF has been “killing people in their homes, in markets and on the streets, and looting property including from markets and hospitals,” rights group Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
“Six days have passed, and we know nothing about him,” Ali said, speaking in New Halfa in Kassala state.
He and his family have taken refuge there after an arduous 150-kilometer (90-mile) journey.
At least 124 people have been killed and dozens wounded in the fighting in Al-Jazira state over the past 10 days, according to the United Nations.
The death toll for the whole month is at least 200.
War has raged in Sudan since April 2023 between the army under the country’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the RSF, led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The conflict has triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. More than half the population — 25 million people — face acute hunger.
So many persons missing
The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that more than 119,000 people have fled from Al-Jazira state amid the recent surge of violence.
Mohamed Al-Obaid from Al-Hajjilij village in the state told AFP his story.
“So far, we’ve counted 170 missing from our village. Entire families are unaccounted for,” he said from New Halfa, where some children arrive unaccompanied by family members.
Since February, communications networks and Internet services have been almost entirely severed in the state, making it practically impossible to check on someone’s whereabouts.
Activist Ali Bashir, who helps people get away from villages in eastern Al-Jazira, said “the communications blackouts are making the missing persons crisis even worse.”
Sudanese social media are filled with posts about missing persons, with activists sharing the pictures and names, many of them children or elderly.
Earlier this month, intense clashes between the army and the RSF spread to Al-Jazira’s Tamboul city.
Just hours after the army said it had taken control of Tamboul, witnesses reported that the paramilitaries were continuing to operate there, causing thousands of civilians to flee.
Among them was trader Osman Abdel Karim, who lost track of two of his sons during fighting on October 19.
“Two of my sons, one 15 and the other 13, were outside when the attack began that Saturday night, and we had to leave without them,” the 43-year-old said.
“Ten days have passed, and we don’t know if they’re dead or alive.”
At least 46 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, hospital hit, says Gaza ministry
- Strike on hospital torches medical supplies, officials say
- Israel says militants were hiding in hospital
CAIRO: At least 46 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, mostly in the north where one attack hit a hospital, torching medical supplies and disrupting operations, the enclave’s health officials said.
Israel’s military has accused the Palestinian militant group Hamas of using Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya for military purposes and said “dozens of terrorists” have been hiding there. Health officials and Hamas deny the charge.
Later on Thursday, an Israeli airstrike on two houses in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza killed at least 16 Palestinians, medics at Al-Awda Hospital in the camp told Reuters. The dead included a paramedic and two local journalists, they added.
Northern Gaza, where Israel said in January it had dismantled Hamas’ command structure, is currently the main focus of the military’s assault in the enclave. Earlier this month it sent tanks into Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya to flush out militants it said had regrouped.
Eid Sabbah, director of nursing at Kamal Adwan — which is in Beit Lahiya — told Reuters some staff suffered minor burns after the Israeli strike hit the third floor of the hospital.
There were no reports of any casualties at the hospital, which Israeli forces stormed and briefly occupied last week. Israel said it had captured around 100 suspected Hamas militants in that raid. Israeli tanks are still stationed nearby.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip called for all international bodies “to protect hospitals and medical staff from the brutality of the (Israeli) occupation.”
The Israeli military has said its forces are operating in the hospital area based on intelligence about the presence of terrorists and terror infrastructure in the vicinity.
“During the operation, it was found that dozens of terrorists were hiding in the hospital, with some even posing as hospital staff,” said the military in a statement following Thursday’s strike.
Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Thursday that one of its doctors at the hospital, Mohammed Obeid, had been detained last Saturday by Israeli forces. It called for the protection of him and all medical staff who “are facing horrific violence as they try to provide care.”
The Gaza war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced most of the enclave to rubble, Palestinian authorities say.
Iraq tries to avoid regional fight as militias fire at Israel
- Kataib Hezbollah, the most powerful of the armed factions, said Israel and the US would have to pay a price for Israel’s strikes on Iran last week
BAGHDAD: Nervously watching Israel’s destructive campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon, Iraq is working to avoid being drawn into the growing regional conflict as Iran-backed armed groups launch attacks on Israel from Iraqi soil, sources familiar with the matter say.
Two decades after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq is experiencing relative stability with high revenue from oil sales funding a service-based agenda that has turned much of the country into a construction site.
Iraq does not have diplomatic relations with Israel and Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani’s government is wary of regional conflicts that could affect its delicate balancing act between Washington and Tehran, both states it is allied with.
Spillover from regional conflict resulted in months of tit-for-tat attacks between Iran-backed armed groups and US forces stationed in Iraq and the region that only subsided after Iran intervened in February.
But Sudani’s government has not been successful in a push to convince the Islamic Resistance in Iraq — a coalition of Iran-backed armed groups — to stop firing rockets and drones at Israel, according to four sources in Iran-backed armed groups and two government advisers.
Two visits to Iran by Iraq’s top security officials in the past two months, seeking Tehran’s help to rein in its allied Iraqi factions, failed, the sources said.
“The Iraqi delegation received a cold reception in Tehran ... The answer was: those groups have their own decision and it is their call to decide how to support their brothers in Lebanon and Gaza,” said a senior Iraqi security official briefed on the visits.
Baghdad turned to Washington, asking US officials to intervene with Israel to prevent retaliation for the attacks, including one that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded more than 20 on Oct. 4, the sources said, the first time such an attack has been reported to cause fatalities.
“Washington was understanding of the repercussions of possible Israeli strikes in Iraq and pledged to help,” said an Iraqi foreign ministry official.
A spokesperson for the US embassy in Baghdad did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Four militia sources said the Kataib Hezbollah and Nujaba groups, which are leading the attacks on Israel, have warned the prime minister against pressuring them to halt their actions and vowed to continue their attacks as long as Israel continued its Gaza and Lebanon operations.
The issue has divided parties in Iraq’s ruling coalition, all of whom are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and view Israel as an enemy, though some differ over how involved Iraq should be in the regional confrontation.
Shiite leaders discussed the risk of repercussions from attacks on Israel and possible Israeli retaliation during two meetings in October, said Ahmed Kenani, a Shiite lawmaker from the ruling alliance.
Key players in the Shiite coalition view direct confrontation with Israel as counterproductive and potentially damaging to Iraq, according to four Shiite lawmakers.
“Those groups who have the rockets and drones should go to Gaza and Lebanon to fight Israel rather than pushing Iraq toward destruction,” said Iraqi PM adviser Abul Ameer Thuaiban.
Kataib Hezbollah, the most powerful of the armed factions, said Israel and the US would have to pay a price for Israel’s strikes on Iran last week.
Senior Iraqi security sources told Reuters ahead of that attack that any strike by Israel against Iran outside what the sources called the established rules of engagement could prompt pro-Iran armed groups to significantly expand their attacks on Israel and US assets in the region.
Blinken says ‘good progress’ made toward Lebanon ceasefire deal
- Said that Washington “working very hard” on concluding arrangements on a deal
- US has stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon
WASHINGTON DC: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that negotiators have made “good progress” toward a deal that would bring a ceasefire in Israel’s offensive in Lebanon.
The top US diplomat said that Washington was “working very hard” on concluding arrangements on a deal that would include the withdrawal of Hezbollah from the border region with Israel.
“Based on my recent trip to the region, and the work that’s ongoing right now, we have made good progress on those understandings,” Blinken told reporters.
“We still have more work to do,” he said, calling for a “diplomatic resolution, including through a ceasefire.”
Two senior US officials, Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk, met Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said that any deal on Lebanon must guarantee Israel’s security.
Unlike in the year-old war in Gaza, the US has stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and has largely backed Israeli strikes against Hezbollah, while voicing concern for the fate of civilians.
Blinken called again for implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, dating from 2006, which calls for the disarmament of non-state groups in Lebanon and a full Israeli withdrawal from the country.
“It’s important to make sure that we have clarity, both from Lebanon and from Israel, about what would be required under 1701 to get its effective implementation — the withdrawal of Hezbollah forces from the border, the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces, the authorities under which they’d be acting, an appropriate enforcement mechanism,” Blinken said.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking alongside Blinken and their South Korean counterparts, said there was an “opportunity” in Lebanon.
“We’re hopeful that we will see things transition in Lebanon in a not too distant future,” Austin said.
