The egg as symbol of rebirth is powerful. It can inspire. In the case of Lebanon, the egg is more than a representation of fertility because it plays into the enduring myth that the constituents of this nation will rise from the ashes of their destruction. This myth also conceals a warning and question, however: Will the new be fundamentally different and better, or is there a danger that the new will be just as vain as the old? This question is rising to  an existential level for Lebanese democracy and its spectrum of—not yet fully formed—anti-establishment political movements, parties, programs, and coalitions.

Without assuming that any type of research, let alone journalistic, can provide more than a rough prediction of the winding story that might lead from the 2016 presidential election to parliamentary elections in the first half of 2018, it still is non-negotiable to try and put such a story together. It is a must-write because this story could turn out to be the largest game changer in the Lebanese state’s history. In other words, it could prove more decisive for the safe future and prosperity of Lebanon than the transition from the French Mandate of the 1920s to independence in 1943, more corrosive to legacy power structures than the upheavals of the 1950s, more advantageous to national wealth creation than the golden years of the 1960s, more confused than the multi-factional serial disputes of the 70s and 80s, and more pivotal than the incompletely implemented Taif Accord of 1989.

Speculatively, a successful 2018 tipping point leading to a sea of change in the Lebanese economic reality, political authenticity, and national identity could, in the hindsight of historic studies commemorating the Lebanese Republic’s 150th anniversary around 2070, be seen as the event that set society on a track of productive development. It would provide the possiblity to overcome and undo all the damage that external interferences, domestic assassinations, governmental vacuums, usurpations of power, and peaks of corruption  have brought upon Lebanon in the 28-and-a-half years between Taif and the 2018 elections.   

The counter scenarios can be as extreme. The elections might not move the status quo by even a single iota. In discussions with Executive, sentiments representative of the anti-establishment—the most politically engaged population group— reflected the whole spectrum. We heard a view that this upcoming election was the chance—with poor odds of winning—of a century; we heard confident opining that the coming election would fulfill or exceed expectations for a productive change; we were also confronted with fears that any elected opposition would be wholly ineffective, or that the elections would be cancelled by existentially threatened leaders under any pretense or self-engineered threat. One opinion leader thought that, because of the deterioration of the Lebanese mindset into an extreme cynicism and acceptance of intolerable national circumstance, such cancellation would even go unchallenged in what he lambasted as a mix of over-assimilation and under-engagement in the majority of civil society.

Opportunity and threat

Ahead of—in the views of some more than in the views of others—an all-decisive election, the anti-establishment forces appear to be moving in three directions that may or may not interrelate productively. One activity that comes from new political movements is the building of election machines: the apparatus to campaign, draw in voters through participatory program-building surveys, fundraise and influence media, assess issues and election districts where majorities can be fought for with a reasonable chance of winning, etc.

The second sphere of activity is the development of political and economic programs, position papers, and codes of ethics. Today’s political aspirants are pursuing this road more than their predecessors, saying that detailed programs will be the only, or most important, competitive edge in the coming elections. The third sphere of activity is talk. A considerable number of hopeful politicos are busy with the perilous task of figuring out who they are and what they want. This is perilous because this still existing indecision and ceaseless debating among anti-establishment actors can turn into a spiral of unproductive introspection. On the other hand, it could provide the training to produce convincing arguments for the coming debates in front of the voting public. It could also help identify and energize people who can credibly sell the arguments of the anti-establishment in public debates. The outcome of the current introspection and retreats among civil society might hinge on one factor: Can this fragmented assembly of individuals overcome the barriers of self-interested competition among wannabe alpha animals that are unwilling to concede claims to top roles? Will some activists confess to, and implement, the will to be political water carriers in opposition campaigns, in exchange for being able to contribute to the campaigns behind the scenes and make an election victory possible?

All of this is in the realm of possibility and is not an exercise in rediscovering the gravity rules of politics. In reviewing scenarios and possible trajectories of Lebanese political and economic realities, one should perhaps resist the temptation to see Lebanon as a standalone case that is not influenced by political trends in Western democracies. It certainly seems true that the Lebanese case is an outlier of democratic societies and has one-of-a-kind aspects, such as institutionalized confessional structures that led to mutual paralysis. But, on the other hand, Lebanese political minds are clearly exposed to, and aware of, the deep changes in the old games of politics: changes that have germinated in the years since the great recession and marinated the populaces and politicians over several years. From changes in the scientific side of propaganda and manipulation of voting outcomes, to changes in the willingness to try out untested solutions. The political worlds tumbled in 2014, 15, and 16, and there is no reason to assume that these changes will be less radical in future—on the contrary, they might only be more pronounced in coming decades.

Non-traditional political actors

This international development is reflected in the names that influence and inform the thinking of local political actors (whether they are imbued with positive or negative connotations is irrelevant in this regard). Names and events, such as Trump, Brexit, Syria, Podemos, Five-Star, Le Pen, De Vos, and Macron made appearances in discussions which Executive had with Lebanese anti-establishment movements and their leading ideologues, or sometimes second-tier representatives.

As UK-based political commentator and journalist Steve Richards theorizes in his recent book, “The Rise of the Outsiders,” people from outside of the political mainstream in many countries have risen to more influence when compared with the pre-recession world. These outsiders “across the democratic world are intimidatingly strong, and yet transparently weak” in a confounding combination of winning power and bringing historic change while at the same time exhibiting silliness, inconsistency, and fragility that make them both vulnerable and dangerous.

This seems to be an apt description of the anti-establishment outsiders in Lebanon as it is for those in Europe. Outsiders are not necessarily elected, but they effect change even if they are kept at bay by mainstream parties. At the same time, they demonstrate the weaknesses, fissures, and fault lines that exist in mainstream parties.

The Lebanese political mainstream is in many ways an oxymoron because core components of the mainstream in Western democracies—institutional party machines and programs—are not among their props. People, specifically dynasties and tribal heirs with legacy communal obligations and loyalties, are. Thus, political programs and ideas are as unhelpful and counterproductive in the traditional political game here as skis on a cow and even political institutionalism only leads to disturbances when a dynastic pattern dictates that a nephew or grandson-in-law of the za’im become the helmsman of the machine.

At the same time, though, the narrative of outsiders versus establishment, of the politically inexperienced against the isolated and self-absorbed elite, with all its sub-plots and narrative twists seen in the admired democracies of the Western hemisphere, is very much the same narrative as exists in Lebanon. This country also has self-proclaimed outsiders taking on the political insiders whose power base is in a state of erosion from disenchantment. This could also be disenchantment with an undeliverable promise, such as full employment for all, reduction of immigration numbers in a country with open borders, or an end to refugee arrivals.

Whether the disenchantment is justified or not is secondary—most Lebanese will of course claim it is strongly justified, but so will protest voters in Europe and the US. What matters is the storyline. The storyline of disappointment with a government that cannot manage to deliver the possible or impossible and the simultaneous counter-story, on part of the outsider, offering an unambiguous improvement of a problem—but simultaneously camouflaging the real dimensions of the problem with bold rhetoric—is what is happening in Lebanon. Voting as means to express displeasure with the ruling elite is of course not new at all. But it is a dangerous gamble that can endanger the stability of a system. On the other hand, as the past few years have shown again from Western states, this gamble can result in fundamental, historic change.

[pullquote]Outsiders are not necessarily elected, but they effect change even if they are kept at bay by mainstream parties[/pullquote]

Thus, with all the peculiarities, anachronisms, and insular behavior molds in Lebanese society, the dynamics of the outsider phenomenon and its impact of effecting fundamental policy change in countries like the UK and the US—there would have been no Brexit referendum without the rise of UKIP, suggests Richards—indicate that the 2018 elections will have a deep impact in Lebanon, even if perhaps in unforeseen and unforeseeable ways.

Even in the scenario with the most optimistic bent from an anti-establishment point of view, however, the essentials of leadership in human relations will not vanish like an anti-establishment party might rise in meteoric fashion and disappear nearly with equal velocity. As Richards notes, political parties only flourish when they have smart leaders, and no party will acquire momentum when a leader cannot lead.

Establishing leaders

What is required of a leader is more than what some executive training courses might be able to deliver over the course of a few weeks, as it includes some skills that need to preexist at least in basic form: a capacity to frame policies with wide appeal and assure that they are consistent with the party’s fundamental values, the skill to communicate these policies via media—and social media—to voters, the ability to unite and rally the party around those policies, and the skill to implement a program when in government while maintaining the flexibility to respond to unexpected events and win electoral battles.

The most daunting task of the anti-establishment opposition in Lebanon may well be to produce such leaders and, thus, the biggest danger may be that those leaders will either turn into the politicians they want to replace or are already dyed in establishment wool under their coats of anti-establishment identities (see leader on page 10).

Party programs, uncommon as they have been in the past, and election machineries are functions of two elements that the Lebanese have been known to mobilize—mind power and money power. It will be a demanding intellectual exercise to create platform and programs that have enough momentum to penetrate walls of disillusionment and cynicism in the Lebanese populaces on the one side, and dissolve traditional links of clientelism and short-sighted self-interest in other voter strata. But it does not look to be an impossible task, given the knowledge, rich heritage of designing concepts, and global reach that the Lebanese have.

Even the ability to coexist—which is the perhaps most enduring form of the elusive characteristic of unity—is strong in the Lebanese and well-trained, despite the country’s experiences with self-induced political paralyses. The idea of a strong unified anti-establishment program platform as the strongest argument and differentiation mark of the new opposition is hardly convincing—by countless foreign examples with desperate searches for unity in opposition movements. Winning elections without credible leaders, on the other hand, looks like mission impossible in a country that is so heartily attuned to the importance of good, old-fashioned identities.   

As a nation, Lebanon was doomed from the start. This is the unifying theme of the mainstream anti-establishment message. The country’s sectarian power-sharing arrangement spawned a cancer that prevented the growth of a national identity and crippled state institutions. Today, a “leader” in Lebanon cannot rally the nation. He can rally his community, or a fraction of it. That is about it. And just to be clear, using “he” does not indicate gender insensitivity. There is almost no space at the political top in Lebanon for a “she,” a fact many among the burgeoning opposition are quick to lament.

Lebanon, so the argument goes, must abandon community quotas in all state positions, and its people must see themselves as citizens with equal rights, not serfs begging favors of a lord. How to achieve this, and what to do once in power, of course, are far more complicated questions.

Over the past two months, Executive sat with nine parties, groups, and individuals with political aspirations who self-identify as anti-establishment (a fraction of the 30 or so group sources say are considering parliamentary runs). Nearly all are taking aim at the parliamentary elections slated for the first half of 2018 (two groups were not certain if — or how — they would run, and two groups Executive wanted to speak with declined to talk, as they had not yet decided whether to contest the polls). Those set on running hope to unseat the parties who have held power for the past 27 years, if not longer; parties the new opposition accuses of selling Lebanon to the highest foreign bidder, while ruling with fear and favors in a system where inequality under the law has become an accepted norm. A Lebanon for fully equal Lebanese citizens is the promise on every lip, with only one aspirant, Roger Edde, making full decentralization an absolute public policy priority.

No interviewee believed the task ahead would be easy. In fact, nearly everyone interviewed stopped Executive at one point in the conversation to clarify that the establishment may yet postpone the 2018 elections (which would be the fourth delay for polls originally scheduled for mid-2013). However, when it comes to actually attempting to unseat a political class that has a massive arsenal of name recognition, party mechanics, and clientelist loyalty, visions on how this should be done vary. As do political platforms, most of which have yet to be finalized.

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One thing that is clear: The Western dichotomy of left and right does not seem to apply in Lebanon. Take Citizens’ Movement (CM), a group with a core of 15, still unsure if they will run. Members say they are far left when it comes to personal freedoms (supportive of gay marriage, for example, but cognizant that it would not be a campaign pledge to highlight in every district of the country), yet ranging between center-left and center-right on economic policies, as per their own self-description. Pressed to consider how to sell policy positions that are not consistently “black or white,” Citizens’ Movement Co-founder Elias Abu Mrad offers, “People in Lebanon don’t ask this. Europeans ask this.” Assad Thebian, co-founder of the You Stink movement, agreed, suggesting: “[Lebanese] don’t care if you’re socialist or progressive. All they care about is two things: Who are you and what are you going to do?”

So who are they?

The opposition today roughly resembles a Venn Diagram with three sets. In general, the would-be new political class has a background in civil society, the private sector, or politics. There is a lot of overlap, and especially amid the 2015 garbage crisis, meetings among the different groups were, by all accounts, frequent. Those meetings continue, with crowd size apparently varying (some groups no longer attend, some attend sporadically). Given the electoral law they will presumably be working with, unity makes the most sense, and many are still hoping for — and working toward — it. During interview after interview, however, Executive asked whether egos or policy differences were the larger barrier to unity, with egos being the democratically selected answer to that question.

The path toward unity

Nearly everyone interviewed for this report agreed that part of Lebanon’s governance problem is the unwritten agreement that all decisions be made by consensus. Establishment politicians frequently meet, discuss issues, and make policy choices outside the framework of state institutions (i.e., cabinet or Parliament). The choices that politicians make are not the result of voting in the Council of Ministers, nor the Chamber of Deputies. Choices are made behind closed doors, and only if everyone can be brought onboard with what that choice may be. Whatever policies and platforms establishment parties tout around election time, the critique is that none have solid principles that they stand by and use to guide decision making. A clearly stated and detailed list of principles and policy goals is the only winning value proposition the opposition can offer. Campaigning with a clear platform is the only hope of success, interviewees explain. As Mohammad Alem, a lawyer who has been involved in opposition meetings since 2015 and who helped draft a 2006 electoral law that inspired the current law agreed upon in June, puts it, “We think that the only way out is the creation of a very strong, unified political platform that has the courage to try to take 10, 15, or 20 seats in the election.”

According to Alem, Thebian, and Gilbert Doumit, a management consultant self-described as having a foot in all three of our Venn Diagram circles, efforts toward a unified opposition platform — with a socio-economic focus — is advancing.  Doumit elaborates: “I think everyone is conscious that there’s no way but coming together. There’s a maturing process. Conversation and substance in social movement are maturing. In my experience it’s [now] the first time that people are taking it seriously that there should be an agenda and joint platform. This was not there at previous election times. A different conversation is happening now.”

As individuals, the three say they are involved in attempts to build a unified opposition coalition. Additionally, a group with some 20 members called Alternative Lebanon is also in the mix. Party member Nassib Khoury explains that Alternative Lebanon is in talks with no less than 34 other groups and parties. While Alternative Lebanon seeks parliament seats as a primary objective, Khoury says that the group prioritizes disrupting dysfunctionality in Lebanon through lobbying and fact-checking information the government disseminates. 

But not everyone is waiting to hammer out a unified opposition platform.

The decided

Citizens in a State, a new political party headed by former Labor Minister and long-time critic of government policy Charbel Nahas, has a platform, which it ran on during the 2016 municipal elections, explains Ahmad el-Assi, a group member who says the party received 7-8 percent of the vote in the municipalities where its candidates ran. Assi says Citizens in a State grew frustrated with the attempts at building consensus around a unified platform two years ago, and thus, wrote their own. He says the party will still “welcome anyone who wants to talk to us.”

Assi explains that his party’s economic priorities are making Lebanon more productive and better distribution of wealth through taxation and increasing public-sector wages. He also says Citizens in a State tackles policy issues as they come instead of regularly trumpeting each piece of their party platform (for example, they have an electricity plan, he says, but at the time of the interview, before the public sector wage increase was approved by Parliament, the party focused its messaging only on the wage scale).

Although Citizens in a State has a platform in hand, the party has not decided on a set strategy for contesting the 2018 polls (i.e., running candidates in each district, striking alliances with other opposition groups, etc).    

The Party of Lebanon (PoL), by contrast, has a set goal of fielding candidates for all 128 seats in Parliament, according to its president; Jacques Mechelany. The protests inspired by the 2015 garbage crisis convinced PoL’s core members — around 25 people out of 300 total partisans — that Lebanon was ready for political change, however the party was also frustrated with the lack of clear policy proposals during anti-establishment discussions in 2015. “People were ready to destroy everything, but had no alternative to propose,” he says of the 2015 meetings.

PoL has a 13-point manifesto  that, Mechelany says, represents hope for building a better Lebanon. It is heavy on reform and private-sector involvement as a means to upgrade the country’s crumbling infrastructure, with building a non-sectarian meritocracy at its core. PoL’s platform is its litmus test for creating alliances, and its goal is 1 million members and a parliamentary majority to realize its platform. Mechelany will not set a timeframe for achieving either goal, but is confident that with an estimated 7 million potential voters living in Lebanon or maintaining close ties from abroad, 1 million members and a parliamentary majority is not the stuff of dreams. 

The crowdsourced approach

In October 2016, purple billboards (one featuring many small fish ganging up on a very large fish) were found all over Lebanon. The $60,000 campaign introduced the country to Sabaa, a new political party in the discussion phase of building a platform. Secretary General Jad Dagher explains that Sabaa is still in talks with the various opposition circles to forge a united policy agenda, while also engaging people throughout the country, so that  “citizens participate in this program.” The party has experts to draft position papers, but also wants to ensure its proposals meet local needs.

Like the others, Sabaa eschews right/left labeling. Dagher describes the party as “center” and explains, “We do give priority to the prosperity and welfare of citizens, the happiness of citizens. This is why we base our policies on indices measuring the happiness of citizens, sustainable development, and give less importance to traditional indexes, which measure only the economic activities of the country.”

He insists Sabaa’s goal is a parliamentary majority in 2018, even while admitting that “we are of course realistic, we are doing our calculations in a realistic manner, but I will not lower the bar for the moment.”

The outsider coming from inside

Over a decade ago, Roger Edde, whose brand is ubiquitous in Byblos, founded the Peace Party. Born two years before the Lebanese Republic, Edde is related to the country’s first president post independence, Bechara el-Khoury, through his mother, and former president Emile Edde through his father. As a young man, Edde says he was politically active and retains ties with could-be candidates in districts throughout the country.

The Peace Party has been involved in opposition talks for two years now, he says, and is gearing up for a campaign run on a platform of hope that has yet to be finalized (it will likely entail 10 main points related to privatization, full decentralization and socio-economic priorities). As for opposition unity, he sees the Peace Party as an umbrella various groups will eventually come under. “I will lead the effort 100 percent, and will coordinate it,” he explains, offering his lineage to explain why. “Nobody has my inheritance of leadership.”

While Executive did not query every source on how willing they were to join Edde, the asset he sees in his heritage could actually be a liability. Speaking of some other likely candidates with a history of working within the system, one source described their anti-establishment credentials as “bullshit.” The question of how much exposure to the system can discredit someone attempting to join a unified opposition is likely to receive more intense focus in the months to come.

Still deciding

Everyone interviewed for this article explained that opposition parties are still not yet in full campaign mode, and that strategic decisions are yet to be formally made (i.e., which specific candidates to field, which districts to contest, whether or not and with whom to ally). Some have not formally decided to run, Beirut Madiniti being the most prominent example. Representatives of the group told Executive that, since it began as a city-focused initiative, it has not decided internally whether to shift to a national focus or not. That said, there are lesser known groups, such as Citizen’s Movement, that hope to have an impact on the overall policy discussions in the country, whether they run or not.

Citizens’ Movement (CM) grew out of an initiative called Take Back Parliament that attempted to run in the repeatedly postponed 2013 parliamentary elections. Registered as a political party, along with its core membership CM has a board of five. It has not decided whether or not to run, explains co-founder Abu Mrad, and is focusing on building a platform by doing deep studies of specific issues (public transportation, fair trade, and oil and gas are among the topics on which CM is currently well-versed with specific policy proposals). The party may run in 2018, or may wait until 2022, Abu Mrad says.

Hopeful but realistic

While the final shape of Lebanon’s opposition during the 2018 polls is still unclear, everyone interviewed for this article admitted they face an uphill battle. They anticipate dirty tricks and attempts by the establishment  to delegitimize them. While they all recognize that a parliamentary majority is the only way to implement even parts of their platforms, most realistically expect no more than 20 seats in 2018. Once the exact mode of campaigning is settled, one expects the next challenge will be governing as a minority or continuing to push campaign messages from the outside until the next chance to transform the system.