Given the opaque functioning of the Lebanese state, it is good that sessions of the Parliament are open for the public to see. Unfortunately, they are akin to vultures tearing apart a carcass. In some 62 speeches and 28 hours of debate that took place over the three-day session last month, there were screams and accusations, name-calling and finger pointing, with hardly an allusion to progressive public policy.
In utopia, parliamentarians represent their constituents’ demands before the convention of government, which then attempts to fulfill these demands within resource constraints. In Lebanon, the Parliament is utterly detached from the lives of the Lebanese, its members asserting the interests of their sectarian overlords and the public purse fought over for plunder.
For years now Lebanon’s enterprising and entrepreneurial private sector has been surrogate mother to a people abandoned by the state, spurring new business and generating new wealth and employment. But even the private sector can only slow Lebanon’s current slide. Among many other issues, Beirut has become expensive well beyond the means of most of its residents.
Paying “old rent” has allowed hundreds of thousands of Lebanese to scrape by and afford their other costs of living, but it has effectively been a subsidy the private sector pays in place of government policy to address public housing needs. This warped rental market has led to dangerously dilapidated buildings, the decay of heritage structures and stunted economic development. A draft rental law that has resurfaced after lying dormant for years would phase out old rents, but its vagaries on public housing mean it will almost certainly fail to help people afford homes.
In utopia, parliamentarians would engage in earnest debate and develop legislation that would leave a lasting legacy. In Lebanon, pursuing policy development seems far from parliamentary minds, but at least they let us know.
Their reckoning may be nigh, however, with increasing public protests in the country showing a gathering rage that may soon force accountability upon those who were elected to serve the public good.
