Look at how the traditional politicians have stolen our slogans and plans. Look at how they now include women, experts and programs in their campaigns. Look at how they form alliances with the devil out of fear from the independents.
Tomorrow, we will have MPs that truly represent us. How many, is up to how many of you show up and vote. If we look at 2009, what’s happening in 2018 is unbelievable. I am proud of you all, and honored to have protested, gotten beaten up and campaigned alongside all of you. You are what makes Lebanon livable and lovable. Our struggle is a long one, and we have made their octogenarian facade crack and crumble.
Tomorrow, when we wake up, something amazing will happen. Tomorrow, before we sleep, I hope the news will be extra good and surprises will be extra sweet. Next elections, our bloc will be bigger, stronger and have more impact. Till then, we need you to go out and vote tomorrow, especially in districts where good independents are running.
Rejoice. You have run the best campaign this country has ever seen, without spending taxpayer money illegally, or polluting our already toxic environments.
I am proud of you all, and love you all deeply ❤
(Originally appeared as a status on my Facebook profile on the eve of the first parliamentary elections in 9 years)
Last Minute Recommendations
If your home district has a Kollouna Watani list, vote for them. Even if the coalition is far from ideal, and some of the groups that form it are not your favorites, they are the first time a broad segment of Lebanese citizens has agreed on the broad strokes, gone a step ahead and put citizens and their rights about sectarian scaremongering and perpetuating the corruption machine.
To partisans, no one wants you to abandon part of who you are. If you identify as a Lebanese Forces supporter, or a Hezbollah supporter, a Aounist, or a Kataeb, an Amal supporter or a Kharzeh Zar2a fan, keep doing that. However, pause for a moment and think about yourself. Keep supporting them publicly, play the sectarian games in public. Tomorrow though, behind the divider, tick the box of independents, so that you can try someone new who hasn’t been ruined by the corruption curse. Try so that maybe some aspects of our lives in Lebanon become better in the next 4 years.
Take an hour out of your Sundays, and go out and vote. Please. Let’s keep this struggle going, so that 2022 looks even brighter than 2018. Do it so that in 2026, the parliament is no longer something that’s there to increase MP salaries and hike citizen taxes, but somewhere where progress is initiated, and the country we want starts to form with progressive, pragmatic legislation that we so desperately need, and of course, accountability.
Thank you for voting. Goodnight and see you at the polling stations tomorrow!
The first elections are in 3 days. I say first, because it’ll be my, and probably your first time voting for parliament. The reason is because all those in power at the moment, kept extending for themselves as they increased their salaries and hiked our taxes and debt.
What’s unnerving is that the vicious propaganda machine of those in power, has been trying to smear efforts by independent candidates to represent us, the silent majority that has been oppressed and abused by the garbage governments that have kept us poor, polluted and without good Internet in extreme traffic.
This post is my last ditch effort to convince you to go and exercise your right to vote on Sunday, and not sit at home and just complain.
1- Because you’ve never voted.
Aren’t you curious? Wouldn’t you like to experience the actual voting process? Don’t you want an excuse to go see your relatives in your hometowns and have that yummy Teta food on a Sunday?
How can people who have never voted, be so adamant about not wanting to put in a few minutes to be part of the democratic process that will decide how our lives will play out for the next 4 years? Don’t you want to have a say? Even if you aren’t guaranteed a victory, wouldn’t you wanna let your unhappiness with current situation be noted?
2- It’s a new law
Despite the many issues with the current law, one good thing about it is it’s pseudo-proportional. This means that it’s not “winner-takes-all” anymore. If a party wins 51% of the seats, they get half the seats, not all of them like they used to before.
Many independent campaigns might not be able to get several tens of thousands of votes, but often you need much less in many districts for one seat or two. 1 or 2 seats that won’t be taken by commission-seeking “politicians” is 1 or 2 seats in the right direction, away from corruption and maybe even some good for us, the taxpayers.
3- Hundreds of thousands of new voters
True, old Lebanese are hopeless. They have been voting for the same warlords and thieves all their lives. However, this time around, more than 700,000 people are new voters. This means they’ve never voted. Now, many of them will be like their parents, but many others will hopefully not be. So, if someone pretends they can predict the voting behavior of such a big block of the electorate, they’re lying.
There is real hope that the younger, better educated and more open-minded voters will break away from the warlords and thieves for a change. They, and you, just need to show up and vote.
4- Your honor and self respect
How can you allow someone that has disrespected and humiliated you all your life, stolen your taxes, drowned you in garbage, robbed you of electricity, trapped you in never-ending traffic (while making money off your hardship) be elected back to the office they have been illegally occupying for 9 years?
Do you have no respect for yourself? Do you not mind being abused and stolen from and treated like garbage? Don’t you think you’ve had enough? Don’t you think it’s time to say “enough”? Would casting a vote that makes it harder for them to stay clutching onto power with their bloodstained, wrinkly hands be so hard? Are you really that demoralized and hopeless, that you’d let the warlords and thieves cruise back to power to further abuse you and your loved ones?
5- Why believe the paid media?
Remember when the hired pens of politicians accused people protesting the garbage crisis of being CIA agents? Well, guess what, the court has sentenced those disgusting creatures that call themselves “journalists” to a large fine and jail time. Sadly, most of the other journalists are the same, in bed or on the payroll of the warlords and politicians.
We all know it’s impossible to get on TV or radio without paying, and the only ones with money, are the ones that have been stealing it from us for decades. So, how can you believe the consistent lies orchestrated by the warlords and thieves and their mouthpieces on the airwaves?
You are smart, and capable of making your own decisions. Don’t listen to the paid news, but do your own research, and you will know for sure that the overwhelming majority of independent candidates are good, qualified people, unlike what the warlords and thieves media will try to paint. A few less than ideal independents, doesn’t mean we revert back to the thieves and warlords.
Don’t believe media that thinks the “sun will turn off for 7 days” is a real story. What’s wrong with you!?
6- Our chances are high
Despite the lies of the warlords and thieves, and all the money and bribes they are paying, their chances are bad. Their coalitions don’t make sense, and their supporters are realizing they are just liars seeking to stay in the seat of power. Their constituents haven’t voted in 9 years, and I know many of them feel betrayed and hopefully learned their lesson.
There are many districts where we have a real chance of 1 or 2 seats. In a country with 15 districts, a parliamentary bloc of 5, 10 or even 15 MPs is not that unbelievable anymore. We can get the 7asel in several districts, and those MPs will not only work on the projects we want, but also derail the constant assault on public money by the warlords and thieves in power right now.
Just go and vote, please, and vote independent, not just blank votes, which only help the warlords and thieves in power.
Further reading I have written in the past few weeks about the elections:
Even though I announced my Beirut 1 endorsement more than a week ago, I was still looking into Beirut’s second district and got the chance to sit with and talk to several candidates from more than one list. Today, I am excited to endorse the Kelna Beirut list in Beirut’s second district.
The video they released yesterday sums up what the list believes in and wants to focus on. You can watch here:
A couple of things were striking in the video. The first is perhaps the brutal chastisement of some of the security apparatuses and judiciary in reference to the Ziad Itani fabrication and wrongful imprisonment. Another was the refugee-friendly message, in a week xenophobic rhetoric against refugees is skyrocketing by establishment political parties to pander to sectarian paranoia ahead of the polling stations opening. Their pro-free speech, pro-women’s rights messages were also loud and clear. They even mentioned Beirut’s heritage sites and historic buildings, that the current regime’s coalition has systematically destroyed and replaced with disgusting, unaffordable slabs of concrete and colored glass.
It’s unfortunate that a broader consensus didn’t include B2 like it did in 9 out of the 15 districts in Lebanon, but Kelna Beirut is a robust group of people that are in favor of individual freedoms, drastic reforms, equality and a secular, civil Lebanon.
They’re also competing against a significant concentration of traditionally ultra-partisan communities that have historically been loyal to big, traditional political parties currently complicit in the robbing of public money and slowly killing their taxpayers with garbage, poverty and darkness.
Ibrahim Mneimneh is a name you might remember from Beirut Madinati’s fantastic performance in the 2016 municipal elections, and is one of the prominent names on that list. It’s refreshing to see candidates and campaigns that are openly with civil marriage and civil personal status laws, as well as other much-needed progressive reforms.
If you’re a voter, especially a first time voter, you need to go out and vote on May 6. Blank ballots are of course your right and choice, but it’s important you understand a blank vote only helps established parties under this law, and makes it harder for independent initiatives to make the threshold.
Good luck to all independent campaigns across the country. We’re counting on you guys to actually show up and vote!
I promised I would endorse candidates and lists I feel will represent our view of how Lebanon should be, and where we hope to get to in the foreseeable future. My first endorsement was in Beirut’s 1st District, where I work and live. The main reason was because the majority of the list is from the Li Baladi political movement that I strongly identify with as a whole, but also as individuals such as Joumana Haddad, Yorgui Teyrouz, Gilbert Doumit, Laury Haytayan and Levon Telvizian.
In the Chouf-Aley district, I have decided that the “Madaniyya” list is the one that has my full confidence and endorsement. This is mainly due to the fact I know many of their candidates very well and they have earned my trust over the years. I have even worked with some of them on humanitarian and development issues in the past 5 years, such as Mark Daou and Maya Terro.
It’s also the list that refused to bow down to the Hillary-Bernie style of compromises that have made many independent lists just a refuge for rejected political party hopefuls, and ambitious newcomers that are untested and have shady origin stories.
I’ve been appalled to see statuses by allegedly independent activists lambasting Mark and his campaign, demanding they bow down and pull out for the sake of a “greater good” which upon closer inspection, is just petty ego-centric political squabbling more akin to our current politicians than the ones we hope to see replace them.
Below are a few key points of why Madaniyya has my trust, and why I encourage Chouf-Aley voters to award them their vote this elections on May 6, 2018. It would be good to watch the Megaphone quick-fire interview with Mark Daou, of the Madaniyya list.
As you can you see above, the Madaniyya list crosses off all the important points on my voting checklist. They want civil personal status laws, are with decriminalizing pot, abolishing Article 534 used against the LGBT community, doing away with the Kafala system that is basically modern slavery, and many more topics that are important for Lebanon’s progress into the 21st Century, and out of the Dark Ages the current ruling elite have kept us in.
1- They’re All Activists with Proven Records
The entire list is comprised of activists and human rights defenders, who worked in or started their own grassroots NGOs, or were part of international organizations like the UN.
Maya Terro is the founder of FoodBlessed, an amazing NGO combatting hunger across Lebanon. I know Maya from when we were both at AUB, and there are very few people I know who are as committed, selfless, kindhearted, resourceful and impactful as her. If I want anyone to represent me in parliament, it would be someone like Maya, who has proven she does what she does to better society and push us forward, not just push herself forward like all our current politicians.
Mark Daou is a person I met while in the field in 2012, where we were going to help out people on the verge of starvation, freezing and lack of medical care in the hinterlands of Arsal. After that, Mark and I became good friends and partners in fighting against the garbage government and its police state tactics against peaceful protesters. He’s taken me on tours of his home district too, and during that time, I realized how committed and in-tune with his constituents he was, and how he’s been working to represent them for years now. He is another candidate I want to represent me in parliament.
2- No Political Party Rejects Posing as Independents
One thing that really grinds my gears is how many candidates are posing as independents, when they are clearly still aligned or just freshly left their political parties who are complicit in putting Lebanon is such a disastrous state with their corruption and ineptitude. The good thing about the Madaniyya list, is none of them are or were affiliated to traditional political parties, like other independent lists in the region.
3- They Are Running Against 5 Minister, Including Environment Ministers
The incumbents running against them include 5 ministers, some of which were environment ministers during the dreadful garbage crisis. The ministers are running for elections, and using their executive position for the benefit of their campaigns, in a clear breach of public trust and mismanagement of public money. Let’s unseat the ministers that were part of disastrous cabinets like the garbage one of Salam, and the current one of Hariri.
4- Their Campaign is Solid, and Hasn’t Sunken to the Level of the Detractors
The vile attacks by self-proclaimed “independents” against the list, only made me surer of endorsing them. Especially when they didn’t sink down to the level of the fresh-out-of-political-parties posers. This is the kind of MPs we want, ones that won’t just curse and be children while Berri tries to shut them up in parliamentary sessions while they discuss hiking our taxes as they hike their lifetime salaries.
5- It’s About the People
From day 1, I said I will not endorse groups across the board, and will count on individual candidates who I think will do good in parliament, especially given the preferential vote which will determine who will get which seat, regardless of how well each list does. Madaniyya has the kind of people I want representing me, who are openly for progressive reforms and don’t try to hide them to woo partisan voters. They’re also tried and tested, and would make fine representatives of people like you and me in parliament.
Vote Madaniyya in Chouf-Aley!
Check out their website, it’s painstakingly specific and detailed and will answer any questions or concerns you might have.
I know many of you might not want to vote. The polls I’m running on my Instagram page and the blog’s Facebook page consistently show that 30 to 40% do not wish to go to the ballot boxes on May 6.
This is troubling for me, because the less voters go out and vote, the more secure the current ruling class’ seats are. You have no excuse not to go vote, if not for someone you truly believe in and respect, at least to derail the political parties’ dreams of staying in power forever, and leaving it to their offspring when they’re too old or about to die.
Forget Blank Ballots
Every empty ballot is one extra vote that makes it harder for independents to secure seats, and easier for the ruling politicians to extend their reign of garbage and darkness further. So, the easy excuse of voting blank, is actually helping the ruling elite in this election, not a protest vote.
That’s why you need to do your research in your districts, and see who your best options are. I will also be helping you make your decisions, based on the below points.
Forget Big Meaningless Titles
Independence, freedom, anti-corruption and all the other drivel on the disgusting political ads littering the airwaves and streets, are meaningless. We all know they are all stooges of Iran or Saudi Arabia, that they are all corrupt, and that none of them actually supports freedom and human rights.
The problem with issues such as electricity, decent Internet and proper infrastructure, is that they are all allegedly for such reforms, but their past 30 years in power, shows that will never change as long as they are ruling us against our will.
Here, we have to make our decisions based on things that are much more easily fixable, if we put enough pressure. They don’t need billions of dollars and decades to implement. It takes a couple of signatures and the necessary political will. That’s at least how I’m making my decisions, and below are a few of the points I care most about that are pragmatic goals that we can see as soon as they get into parliament.
Pot Decriminalization
It’s unbelievable that over 3000 young people are arrested every year for a victimless crime, just so a handful of people can get bribed to sweep it under the rug. When the rest of the civilized world is moving way from criminalizing marijuana, it remains one of the only things the security forces here enforce with zero compromise, and often overreaching beyond their jurisdiction and legal rights.
If I’m going to support a campaign, it needs to commit to actually applying the law, and treating drug enforcement as a health issue, not a criminal one. In other words, I don’t want it legal, where you walk into a coffee shop like in Amsterdam. All I’m asking for is that no one ever steps foot in a sub-human jail cell for weeks and months, for absolutely no good reason. It’s basically the current law, where users are immediately referred to the addictions committee and go home, not rot in jail with suspected terrorists, rapists and murderers.
Freedom of Speech
They all claim they are for freedom of expression, but their behavior indicates otherwise. For a campaign to earn my support, they need to be explicitly committed to freedom of speech, online and offline. The age where social media users go to jail for a status or a tweet, needs to end, once and for all.
They might own most of the TVs, radios and newspapers, but they will never own our personal pages on the Internet, and the fact they’re trying to, goes to show you how disgusting and malicious they are.
Civil Status Laws and Civil Marriage
When addressing personal status laws, the current ruling parties always treat it like some unattainable goal that we might be able to reach in the very distant future. No. It’s something we can do now.
Enough archaic, religious courts that decide who can get married, divorced, custody and inheritance. Enough domestic violence that is OKed thanks to ancient laws belong in 1018 not 2018, laws that religious authorities will never update.
I understand that the violent, religious conservatives will have a seizure if women have equal rights, and they prefer the current status quo, so I’m willing to accept civil marriage remain “optional” at first, till the benefits of a secular set of personal status laws proves it’s exponentially better for everyone, even conservatives.
Plus, most of the progressive people who will not submit to dark age laws, are going to Cyprus, Greece and elsewhere to get a civil marriage. Why do we need to go abroad to get married? We should have that option (I’d prefer it be mandatory to protect those that need civil status laws the most) right here at home. Not all of us can afford offshore weddings on islands in better parts of the Mediterranean…
That way, we move large strides towards gender equality, ensure that no minors are forced to marry while underage and encourage people of different sects to marry each other out of love, instead of just someone from the same sect to make their teta happy.
LGBT Rights
The fact that someone can still ostensibly be arrested for being gay, lesbian, bi, trans or queer, is unacceptable. We might be a long way from same sex marriages, but we must surely be closer to that, than eggs being shoved up rectums to “test” for homosexuality. Luckily, this hasn’t happened recently, and wise and prudent judges have exonerated defendants accused of this non-crime. However, the fact that our brothers and sisters in the LGBTQ community still face a threat of arrest, torture and humiliation, needs to stop once and for all.
Removing Article 534 from the Lebanese penal code must be part of a campaign’s plan if they expect to get my support.
Member of Parliament Salaries for Life and Beyond
All these disgusting political parties talk about fighting corruption, when they get their salaries long after their terms expire, and even after they expire and die, passing it on to their families. They do that while they hike taxes on us.
If a campaign wants my support, I expect them to fix this immediately, and ensure no one gets a salary for life. They’re 4-year-term members of parliament, not life-appointees to the US Supreme Court. Khlosna ba2a.
I Could Go On
But these topics are ones I see an easy fix for, and will better the lives of thousands and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese people almost overnight. Everyone wants to get us 24/7 electricity, or at least claims to. The issues that should make you decide who to vote for, need to be more specific and quicker to implement and easy to hold the candidates accountable if they don’t fulfil their campaign promises.
Of course, we still expect to see their plans for the economy, infrastructure and overall reform-minded legislation, just don’t dismiss the above, because they will have the impact we feel most and in the very near future hopefully.
This is my first official endorsement of a campaign for Lebanon’s 2018 parliamentary elections. I encourage and ask my friends and loved ones from Beirut’s first district, to vote for Koullouna Watani’s Beirut 1 list.
The List
I have been a supporter of the Li Baladi movement since its inception on the heels of the Beirut Madinati experiment that was so successful in Beirut’s municipal elections in 2016. It combines everything all of us loved in the Beirut Madinati campaign and mission, plus a political aspect to it, where it goes beyond the day-to-day, developmental concerns of a municipality, and into the political, economic and more macro stated mission of a political movement that we need to unseat the current political regime that has impoverished, humiliated, beaten, jailed, exiled, poisoned and stolen from us for the past 30 years.
This list is the one I am most excited about in Lebanon, where 5 out of the 8 candidates are people I love, support, know and have worked and volunteered with. This makes it the only list in Lebanon so far that I actually support, trust and respect a majority of the candidates in.
But
If you didn’t read my post from last week, give it a quick read, especially if you’re still not sure if you’re gonna vote, who you’re gonna vote for or if you want to drop a blank ballot in protest at the situation.
I know this post might make me lose some friends, and invite aggressive criticism from some, but I can no longer hold my tongue with just over a month from election day.
This law is a disaster, and pushes folks to make unholy alliances to just have a chance at getting to the needed threshold. This means that all the work you might put in, for a list by a coalition you don’t necessarily support all partners in, might mean that your hard work campaigning and your vote, will help the people you don’t want to see in parliament, get the seat, instead of someone you know and are convinced is better and represents you and your goals and concerns.
I cringe at the thought that support for this list might mean that candidate I do not support will get the seat or seats this list wins, based on the tafdeeleh vote (preferential vote).
So
Focus on the Tafdeeleh. This list is amazing, despite an asterisk or two I’m not wholly convinced by. I will not go into the names now, I don’t want to be that guy. All I am saying is that you need to go vote, especially if you’re from Beirut 1. Not voting, or an empty ballot, only helps the ruling elite, not the movements and groups working for positive change and real reform.
In the coming days, I will write extended posts about the candidates in this list I wholeheartedly support, to help you make your decisions if you still haven’t. In the meantime, I invite you to do your own research into the candidates and groups that form this coalition, and decide who you will award your preferential vote to. That will make all the difference. That will determine if the seats this list gets, go to candidates and groups you want to see, not groups or candidates you would have never voted for if they weren’t part of this coalition.
I’m sorry for my frankness, but it’s time to be adults about this and consider the realities. Whether we like it or not, the tafdeeleh is everything, and we need to focus on that if the seats that independents actually do win in different districts, go to candidates that are truly independent and truly represent people like us.
It’s time to have a grown-up conversation guys and gals.
Let’s start with the obvious: these elections, under this law, are absolute shit. The law that we previously felt like a dimwit’s clusterfuck, turned out to be an insanely sly orchestrated move by the ruling elite to ensure their asses stay glued to parliamentary seats, in a weird twist that makes proportionality useless in a majority law kind of way, divided and gerrymandered according to sectarian pieces of the pie.
Having said that, we also have 66 candidates that identify as independents in total, and have a stated goal of unseating the current political class. That’s more than any of the political parties. It’s also more than the weird, contradictory and shamelessly shifting alliances between those parties.
So, it’s not all bad, but it’s definitely very, very far from ideal.
Forget Lists
Many of us, myself included, have been preoccupied with the lists formation for weeks. “I don’t want this guy, I want this girl instead. Why is that group on that list. I wish we can pick and choose from lists”, etc.
If you take a step back though, and see things from a wider perspective, you’ll realize this election is basically a 2-step, 1-person-1-vote kinda thing. The law forces you to form lists, which means that sometimes, unholy alliances might spring up. That’s just for the first phase though, where competing lists try to get more than the threshold of votes in a district.
The threshold (7asel), is the total amount of voters who actually went out and voted, divided by the total number of seats in that district. So, if a district has 4 seats, and 40,000 people voted, the threshold for one seat is 10,000 votes.
Let’s consider that the list you support, got 20,000 out of the 40,000 votes. This means they automatically get 2 seats in parliament.
Focus on the Tafdeeleh (Preferential Vote)
Here’s where things get interesting, and where we might be able to salvage our hopes and dreams for real change this election. The 2 seats that are awarded, go to the list that got them, obviously. However, the candidates from the list, who will go on to serve a 4-year term in parliament, are chosen based on which two candidates have the majority of the preferential vote.
So, if the list you love has 4 people, but one you don’t support for whatever reason, such as past involvement with established political parties, behavior or attitudes you don’t support, and anything else that might make you want to not vote for them, you can make your protest voice heard by giving your preferential vote to someone you do support and want to see in parliament representing you from that same list.
This will help ensure that the woman or man you want in parliament, gets a fighting chance to get one of the seats the list they’re part of is able to attain.
Go Vote, and Forget “War2a Bayda”
The more people go and vote, the higher the threshold becomes. Given that, unfortunately, a majority of people who do actually go and vote are partisan, this means that your blank vote is raising the threshold for victory, but also giving political parties an advantage.
Political parties might want less and less people to vote, to keep the threshold down, and maximize their winnings. A blank vote doesn’t do that though, it just makes it tougher for independent coalitions to get to the threshold, given you added to the total number of votes, but didn’t choose the independent coalition and give them a chance to compete with the established political parties in 9 out of the 15 voting districts in Lebanon.
So, if you want your vote to be a protest vote, choose the independent coalition list in your district, even if it’s far from what your ideal list would be, and award your preferential vote to the candidate you feel would be your best representative in the country’s legislative body (protesting the compromises made in some of those coalitions clearly, instead of just ambiguous blank ballots that will do more harm than good). A blank vote just makes it harder to beat the political parties, without giving independents the chance at a fair-ish fight.
Don’t Stay At Home
Not voting is the worst thing you can do under this law, even worse than a blank ballot. Political parties are mobilizing every last one of their supporters, bribing people, spending millions and millions on their campaigns. Their supporters are gonna go vote, whether it’s by actual conviction somehow, intimidation or “encouragement”. The majority of voters, who do not support any of the political parties that have been abusing power and refusing to leave office for almost a decade, need to go vote.
A boycott will not help, as this statement won’t really shake the politicians we have. The kind of people who aren’t ashamed of the corruption, nepotism and criminal waste and theft of public money, won’t be shaken by a low turnout because of boycotting. They’re like alligators, emotionless and with thick skin.
However, if you boys and girls just put the slight effort of showing up to the ballots, choosing the list opposing the current status quo, and making sure you award your preferential vote to a candidate you personally support, we can ensure that the good people from those not-so-good lists get higher chances of being our representatives in parliament.
Endorsements
I will begin publishing my official endorsements of lists and candidates on Monday, April 2nd, 2018. Till then, Happy Easter!
Yesterday morning, Uber Lebanon announced its plans to make sure voters in Beirut get to and from polling stations on elections day for free. This is amazing news, given that Lebanon is a country where candidates and political parties are actually allowed in the law to bribe voters by giving them money in return for transportation on election day.
The fact that voters who don’t live close to their home district, where they vote, means they are vulnerable to be “persuaded” by political parties who give them gas coupons or get them cars to pick them up so they vote for the list or candidate.
Beirut’s voters won’t have this problem this time, and they can use a promo code that’ll take them to vote for free. I’ll share the promo code when it’s out.
I hope as potential voters, you don’t let something as stupid as a 20 liter gas coupon make your decision on elections day, especially given the billions those giving you that 20$ or so coupon have stolen from your money over the years they extended for themselves.
I’ll be beginning my elections coverage, endorsements and tips this week. So, stay tuned!
Even if you haven’t been following the elections fuss in Lebanon recently, you probably know that old enemies are suddenly on the same coalition running for the elections together. You’ll also notice that political parties in Lebanon have thrown out their last iota of dignity and credibility, by outright saying their benefit-based, district-specific alliances are just meant to help them win, and have no relation whatsoever for their stated principles and positions.
Now, we’re used to the flip-flopping of Lebanese politicians with absolutely no shame and unfortunately no accountability. However, I think we can all agree that this current situation is even too much for Lebanon’s political parties. This is due to the disastrous new electoral law, and shows how shortsighted the Lebanese establishment was, and how they’re scrambling like headless chickens trying to do damage control and keep their claws on the seats they’ve been occupying with no public mandate for the past decade.
Lists and Preferential Votes
To better explain this, I will use A and B for established political parties, and X for independents.
The new law means that you can no longer pick and choose between campaigns, but have to stick to one list as-is. Let’s assume the list is for 10 seats in parliament.
The winning candidates are chosen over two steps, the first is how many seats each list gets. The second, is which candidates from each list will make the cut. Usually, this is something the list-makers decide, putting candidates by order and awarding the seats the list won to the candidates based on the order they’re put in. In Lebanon, the candidates from the list are chosen based on the preferential vote. Preferential vote is an optional “extra” on every ballot, if you choose a list to vote for, you can select your favorite candidate on it as well. Let’s assume List X gets 2 seats out of the 10. The 2 candidates from list X will be the ones that got the most preferential votes.
Now, for the insightful bunch among you, the dangers are already obvious here for political parties. Let’s assume A and B decide to form a list together. A has slightly more potential voters than B in that district. Political party logic here means that partisans will award their preferential vote for a candidate their party instructs them to choose. So, list A partisans will give A candidates preferential votes, and B partisans will do the same for B candidates. Let’s assume the AB list is made up of 5 A and 5 B candidates. If the list gets 50% of the vote, they get 5 seats out of 10. Those 5 seats will probably go to the party with more voters in that district, so A might get all 5 seats, even though B was on that same list, and their partisans votes helped secure those 5 seats of list AB. The definition of piggy-back riding.
This is why political parties keep stalling, and have lowered their standards even lower than usual and admitted they’ll do anything to win, regardless if it is against what they stand for or not.
This Might Be Used Against Them
Where most will see collusion by corrupt parties to ruin the proportionality aspect of the new law (one of the few positives in it), I see a chance to piggy-back on their lists in some districts and get people who truly represent us to the parliament.
Let’s assume a party has a lot of influence in a certain district, enough to secure 5 out of 8 seats for their list. The first 2, 3 or 4 seats might be for their partisans, but given the extreme unpopularity of the political parties that drowned us in darkness and garbage and bad Internet for decades, they want to adopt figures that are independent on their list, to beautify the ugly deal they are giving their constituents.
Here, we have a chance to exploit the extreme displeasure with established parties, and convince their voters to award their preferential vote to the non-partisan candidate, a figure often supported by the general electorate, but not enough to abandon the political parties list to vote for another independent list. If this works, we guarantee that 1 or 2 of the 5 seats they will win, will be people we like, not stooges that will vote like their party leader commands.
Of course, this should only happen in districts where there is absolutely no hope for an independent list to do well on its own. I don’t know about you, but if a certain party can have 4 instead of 5 partisans on its list win, and 1 be a decent human being that has achieved more in life than simply being related to one of the za3ims, sounds good.
We are fighting a battle against a tough, ruthless and cheating opponent. We need to understand the confusion they’ve created is meant to bolster their chances and discourage independent voters from thinking change can ever happen. It can, and we can make their dirty tricks backfire on them, and get MPs that actually think like us and will fight for our rights and the public good.
There are many positive things about the upcoming parliamentary elections in Lebanon, but there are also plenty of horrible things. Today, we’re focusing on one of the positives in this round, and a first in Lebanon’s history.
111 Women Are Running for Parliament
In previous elections, the number of female candidates could be counted on just two hands. Last night, when the window to submit one’s candidacy for the parliamentary elections closed, a total of 111 women had submitted their papers to run for elected office.
This is a new record for Lebanon, a country notoriously horrible to its women. In a country where women can’t pass down their Lebanese citizenship, where murderers of wives and exes usually don’t face justice, where only a handful of women were in parliament, and mostly for being someone’s wife/sister/daughter and where the Women’s Rights ministry is headed by a man…
This is fantastic news, and it’s extremely encouraging to see so many women decide to defy the stereotypes and odds and take the first steps towards making gender equality more than just a tagline the established political parties conveniently remembered just in time for the elections…
We Need Women in Power
I’m sorry, but I’m still not over the fact that a man was chosen to be the minister for women’s affairs. This shows how the current ruling elite don’t give a fuck about women’s rights, they just want something nice to show European donors so they pat themselves on the back with meaningless gestures that don’t really help push this country into the 21st Century.
Citizenship laws, laws that protect against domestic violence, forced marriage of underage girls to much older men and severe inequality when it comes to gender in Lebanon, will never truly get better if women aren’t part of the decision-making process.
I am confident many small men will fight this, but many other good men will make great allies for the women planning to change things for the better. However, they will be allies, not taking the lead. Lebanese women must and will take the lead in their fight not only for true equality, but also the miriad of disasters we are facing as a nation.
“I Don’t Vote Based on Gender, but Based on Merit”
No one told you to vote for someone purely based on gender. This is like the people that say “all lives matter” when someone says “black lives matter”. No one is saying you don’t deserve to be in parliament because you’re not a woman, but the fact that only 3% of the parliament is female, when more than half the country is women, means there is something truly wrong.
Women who would make amazing representatives for us in parliament, should get a fair chance, not get dismissed by patriarchal baboons who feel threatened by strong, independent women.
So, please stop giving the excuse “I will vote for who deserves it”, of course you will, that’s how elections should work. What we’re fighting for is changing the rotten mentality that some parties here push, such as “women’s place is in the house, not politics” and that sadly way too many people agree with in this country of contradictions, even if they’re too ashamed to say it out loud.
I promise to endorse and feature women that I know would truly represent me and my hopes and dreams for Lebanon from their seats in parliament, and stay tuned for intensifying elections-related content to help you decide who to vote for, how to vote and lots more.
Gino's Blog 