Hariri’s Sisyphean task

Fireworks in Lebanon mean one thing: politics.

I watched the brilliant blue and gold explosions light up the Beirut skyline last night in silence, before the huge pops of thunder reached us on the roof of a Hamra hotel. Celebratory gunfire – that scourge of the town – ripped through the flat, close air.

Hariri had won, the pyrotechnics told us so.

Not that this was unexpected. Hariri is the Future Movement leader and head of the Lebanon First Bloc, the largest in the newly-elected parliament. As the son of the murdered ex-Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, he inheritied his father’s title along with his wealth.

His heading the parliament became a virtual certainty after the nomination of Amal Movement Leader Nabhi Berri as Speaker on Thursday – an appointment that was itself spectacularly predictable.

The composition of the new parliament seems to be characterized by continuity. Certainly the election of the new cabinet should yield few surprises.

Hariri has called for unity, indicating he is open for talks with all parties. What may seem at first glance as magnanimous is borne out of simple necessity. Hariri needs consensus.

Placation of opposition parties, Hizbullah among them, is necessary for what Hariri called a parliament “that can achieve, one that is free of obstacles and paralysis.”

Hizbullah, in the previous administration, won the power to veto parliamentary moves. Hariri has indicated that this will no longer be the case, and many hope that this may pave the way to a more cohesive, national unity government.

This seems unlikely. The removal of Hizbullah’s veto power will have to lead to the group being represented in a different way in the new parliament. What form this representation takes, is likely to be long in deciding.

Many parties are still engaging in rhetoric that seems to belie their claimed desires for increased cross-bloc dialogue and a move towards a system of ‘fairer’ proportional representation.

Phalange bloc MP Sami Gemayel said his party believed Hariri’s principles “intersect with the March 14 coalition national stands.”

Change and Reform bloc leader Michel Aoun said that they refrained from assigning any PM candidate.

The Lebanese parliament is still split by age-old confessional differences, and an inclusive dialogue is unlikely to sufficiently address the gulf in demands between the country’s leaders, some of whom are ex-militia leaders. Others are merely in politics through dynastic familial ties.

One twitterer, Samer Karam, summed it up fairly well this morning:

Of the 128 seats in the new Lebanese Parliament: 10 are Billionaires, 25 Millionaires, and 10 ex-Militiamen – Confessionalism or Capitalism?

True, but it doesn’t go far enough into the cronyism that is rife throughout Lebanese politics. Hariri, son of an ex-PM, has been criticised for being too politically inexperienced. The allegation is like handing out speeding fines at the Indy 500.

Inexperience may be a good thing, for experience in Lebanon inevitably leads to murky pasts. Experience means that you did some things you really shouldn’t have. Here experience could well implicate you in a war-crime.

If the fresh-faced Hariri is serious about his overtures of inclusive dialogue and a debate that transcends confessional afilliations, then his inexperience may play on his side. He knows he has to placate many of the country’s political heavyweights  in order to get Lebanon moving forward.

Hariri’s task verges on Sisyphean. At least he seems to recognize that he can’t push the ball up a hill all by himself.