Results Are In

There's something strangely calming about the democratic process even when you're not completely satisfied with the results. And as political pundits all around the world were discussing the scope and effect of a Hezbollah win, the Lebanese were busy voting for the March 14 coalition. This means that, as bad as the last four years were in terms of security and economy, the Lebanese seem to think it's still better than the alternative. What the alternative is, no one really knows, and no one will know for the time being. Some think it's an Islamic republic where women are forced to wear chadors, others think it's a utopia of progress, transparency, strength and stability. Both are probably wrong, and I think the alternative is much closer to the current reality than our politicians on both sides would want us to think.

But let's not dwell on what could have been, and focus on what is and what will be. So March 14 won the election again with somewhere around 70 seats in the 128 seat parliament. That's a healthy majority (more than the slim majority the Hezbollah camp were expected to win, and similar to the one March 14 won four years ago), but it doesn't change much in the composition of the previous parliament. So I don't see much change coming to Lebanon. The petty political haggling over cabinet seats will continue, the parliament will not regain it's full constitutional role and will still be chaperoned by the national dialogue table.

To be honest, I'm not too worried about the future. With Obama at the helm of the West, the 14 Marchers will not be encouraged or pressured into an aggressive stance against Hezbollah as they were under the Bush administration. And hopefully, if Ahmedinejad loses elections on Friday, Iran's stance would be moderated as well, and that will certainly have a positive influence of Lebanese political stability.

Add to that the benefit of taking away Israel's excuse of treating Lebanon as a "terrorist state" under a Hezbollah-led government, I'd say all in all the election result has a pretty thick silver lining...

My only regret is that my curiousity has not been satisfied. It's easy supporting the opposition when you've never seen them in power, and I was looking forward to see how both sides would act in a new balance of paliamentary power. Would March 14 have made a more responsible opposition? And would Hezbollah and Aoun have remained as keen on national unity and dialogue and fighting corruption as they were the past three years? Well I guess we won't find out before at least another 4 years.

Until then, we have a couple of weeks of intense political bickering to look forward to as the next government is formed... Keeping in mind that the government that comes out of the new parliament gets a complete four-year term, I wouldn't bet on a tension-free process considering also how hard it was to agree on the previous government even when it only had a nine-month mandate.

One last thought... The March 14 and Hezbollah-FPM alliances aren't immune to the changes in the international and regional political climates, and some changes in the makeup of these blocs should not be ruled out.

Black man in the White House

Well this blog is supposed to all about Lebanese politics, but let’s face it, who wants to hear about Hariri or Nasrallah today… Today and probably the next couple of weeks will be all about the new guy in the White House, even more so (if that is at all possible) than the previous weeks have been about who the new guy will be.

But this blog is also about my perspective on important issues, and in the spirit of this blog, I want to go all out and describe how I feel today to see, four to eight years from now, how right or wrong I was.

Experience has told me not to get excited when a new president is elected in the US. Many Lebanese and Arabs insist that all American presidents are the same; they only differ in how they choose to screw us. I remember eight years ago when we were hoping for a Bush victory against Gore, in fear that Gore will continue the pro-Israel policy of the Clinton administration. Until we realized, a few years later, that there is worse than a pro-Israel White House, and that’s an anti-Arab White House.

So experience tells me that I’m going out on a limb here when I say this: I am not only relieved Obama won in the sense that I’m glad it’s not McCain, I am actually genuinely happy, optimistic and downright cheerful. Some may think this is naïve, but I’m afraid I’ve been swept away by Obamania…

I had a hard time sleeping last night, waking up at 4 a.m. unable to bring myself to sleep until I turned on the TV, only for a minute, to see preliminary results showing Obama leading with around 200 electoral votes, McCain trailing behind with 90. I woke up in the morning and watched Obama’s 17 minute victory speech. I think this is the first time in my life I’ve ever gotten goose bumps listening to an American president speak.

How refreshing it was for me to hear from a US president (or president-elect in this case) a speech that spoke directly to the non-Americans offering a message of hope, and not in a do-what-I-tell-you-and-everything-will-be-fine kind of way.

“To all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world - our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.”

My message to the new Obama leadership is this:

I often hear of a time when America was a nation admired rather than feared, when American democracy was a source of inspiration rather than concern, when American values were sought rather than imposed. But I’m too young to remember any such time… I only hope I am young enough to see it happen again.