THE EMERGENCE OF THE NON- SECTARIAN MOVEMENT IN TRANSFORMING FROM STREET PROTESTS TOWARDS A FULL- FLEDGED POLITICAL MOVEMENT Wetenschappelijke verhandeling Aantal woorden: 25.981

Jesse Waterschoot Stamnummer: 01306668

Promotor: Prof. dr. Christopher Parker

Masterproef voorgelegd voor het behalen van de graad master in de richting Politieke Wetenschappen afstudeerrichting Internationale Politiek

Academiejaar: 2017-2018

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the individuals with whom I have discussed this topic. Through its specificity, online information was sometimes hard to find, so I would like to thank every individual in Lebanon that shared information with me.

I extend my sincere gratitude to my colleagues at Heinrich Böll Stichtung , who supported me in my project on the Lebanese elections and shared their insights with me. Without their assistance and contacts in Beirut’s political scene, finishing this dissertation would have been much harder. Whenever I had any question about a Lebanese party, organisation or politician they were happy to provide information.

A special acknowledgment must be given to my promotor, Christopher Parker. Through your guidance and advice on this specific topic and support for my internship plans, I was able to complete this dissertation.

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Abstract

Deze Master thesis behandelt de opkomst van de Libanese niet-sektarische beweging. Libanon kent een confessioneel systeem, waarbij de staat en samenleving georganiseerd is op basis van religie. Deze bestuursvorm resulteerde in een politiek-religieuze elite die overheidsdiensten monopoliseerde en herstructureerde om diensten te voorzien aan hun religieuze achterban, in ruil voor hun loyaliteit. Na de burgeroorlog werd dit confessioneel systeem aangepast, maar niet fundamenteel gewijzigd. De bevolking bleef opgedeeld langs sektarische lijnen terwijl de corruptie en zelfverrijking van de politieke klasse alleen maar toenam.

Tijdens de jaren ’90 werd de basis gelegd voor de niet-sektarische beweging, die tegen het confessioneel systeem is. Hun doel is Libanon om te vormen naar een seculiere staat die zijn burgers gelijk behandeld, ongeacht hun religieuze achtergrond. De afgelopen vijftien jaar heeft deze beweging zich ontwikkeld van straatprotesten naar een volwaardige politieke kracht. De afvalcrisis en de lokale verkiezingen in 2016 waren hier een cruciaal moment in.

De campagne voor de parlementaire verkiezingen van mei 2018 vormt het finale stuk van deze thesis. De niet-sektarische beweging geraakte verdeeld over cruciale onderwerpen en de te volgen strategie. Het Libanese confessionele systeem bleek te rigide voor niet-sektarische bewegingen. Ze slaagden er niet in een bres in het systeem te slaan en moesten genoegen nemen met slechts één parlementaire zetel. Hoewel een electorale overwinning ontbrak, was dit verkiezingsproces essentieel voor de verdere ontwikkelingen van niet-sektarische bewegingen en heeft het geleid tot een maturiteitsproces in de beweging.

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Table Of Content

Acknowledgements ...... 3 Abstract ...... 4 Table Of Content ...... 5 1. Introduction...... 7 1.1. Probleemstelling ...... 9 1.2. Outline ...... 10 1.3. Concepts ...... 11 2. Post-independent Lebanon ...... 15 2.1. State structure ...... 15 2.1.1. Challenging the system ...... 17 2.2. civil war...... 18 2.3. Post-Taif and reconstruction ...... 20 2.3.1. Taif agreement and Syrian presence ...... 20 2.3.2. From Liberalism to Neoliberalism ...... 21 2.3.2.1. Solidere and reconstruction ...... 23 2.3.2.2. Service ministries and labour protests ...... 24 3. ...... 26 3.1. Rise of non-sectarian protest movement ...... 29 3.1.1. Arab spring ...... 30 3.1.2. Take Back Parliament ...... 32 4. Garbage crisis and Beirut Madinati ...... 34 4.1. Garbage crisis ...... 34 4.1.1. Events ...... 34 4.1.2. Actors ...... 35 4.1.3. Factors ...... 37 4.1.4. Challenges and result ...... 39 4.2. Beirut Madinati ...... 42 4.2.1. Founding and campaign ...... 42 4.2.2. Results and significance ...... 44 4.2.3. Post-electoral discussions ...... 46

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4.3. Electoral Law ...... 48 5. Analysis of the 2018 Campaign ...... 51 5.1. List formation process ...... 51 5.1.1. Kollouna Watani ...... 52 5.1.2. Bottom-up strategy ...... 54 5.2. Campaign ...... 55 5.2.1. Rallying ...... 56 5.2.2. Programme ...... 57 5.2.3. Challenges ...... 59 5.3. Election results ...... 60 6. Conclusion ...... 63 7. Attachments ...... 66 7.1. Map of the Ottoman Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate...... 66 7.2. Map of Greater Lebanon under the French mandate...... 67 7.3. List of Interviewees ...... 68 8. References ...... 68

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1. Introduction

This dissertation examines the emergence of the non-sectarian Lebanese civil society movement and shows how it collides with the political economy of the state. I was intrigued by this topic when I attended the Beirut Exchange from MideastWire in January 2017. Beside talks with academics, journalists and politicians, I was mostly intrigued by a conversation we had with a non-sectarian activist. He rejected the Lebanese power-sharing system with its corrupt political elite and spoke about his experiences in the garbage protests and Beirut Madinati. This non-sectarian movement struck me as an interesting topic. I started to wonder where the movement has its roots, what the factors were that led to the further emergence and what the next phase would be. In short, I found a topic for my master dissertation.

By then, the non-sectarian movement had already achieved some successes. In the past years, Beirut witnessed a growing non-sectarian movement. Secular activists had been trying to mobilize people but failed to breach out of their initial networks. The summer of 2015 marked a change. Protestors had taken the street after the government failed to prolong the contract of the trash collection. This garbage crisis mobilized the masses and became symbolic for a much larger political disease and broader discontentment in the system. The protests generated several movements, that sought and were largely able to mobilize people on a non-sectarian and non-partisan base. This was a challenge for the traditional confessional parties, because it undermined the legitimacy of confessional leaders that has been in place since Lebanese independence.

The garbage crisis marked the starting point of a new page in the mobilization of non-sectarian movements. Out of the social networks established during the garbage protests, Beirut Madinati was founded for contesting in the municipal elections. Although the traditional parties assembled together to confront this challenging party, Beirut Madinati was a fierce contender and was able to get 40% of the votes, a political victory.

When I returned to Belgium after the Beirut Exchange, I was wondering what the next step of this non- sectarian movement would be. Contesting in the parliamentary elections seemed a logical move. Parliamentary elections had already been postponed three times at the time when I started doing research on this topic and were supposed to be held in spring 2018. This electoral campaign seemed to me as a

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perfect research opportunity for my master thesis. Of course, field research would be essential for gathering enough information and developing insight in the movement. Therefore, I started to look for an internship in Beirut, which I would combine with my own research. The Internship programme of Heinrich Böll Stichtung Beirut was a perfect match. The office allowed me to do a research project on the 2018 electoral campaign of the civil society for them, which I could completely integrate in my own master dissertation. Through this internship, I was able to attend rallies, have personal talks with candidates and gain as much information I needed for my project and master dissertation.

The garbage crises of 2015 and the municipal elections of 2016 were a breaking point in the Lebanese politics. In this dissertation paper I will look at the emergence of this non-partisan movement and how it managed to evolve from a marginal player to a genuine political movement. The political economy of post- war Lebanon and the civil engineering during the rebuilding of Beirut are crucial to get to this point. Therefore, the research has been the based on a combination of literature on the non-sectarian movement and a reading on the political economy of Lebanon and the socioeconomic status of its citizens. Through an analysis of the campaign of the different non-sectarian movements of 2018 I will look at the current state of the movement and what challenges it faces.

At first sight, this topic might seem bound to the Lebanese context, but the transformation of a non- sectarian movement towards a political platform provides insights as well for other countries. Though the movement is a counter-reaction towards a political sectarian system, it collides with the socio-economic grievances that are the result of confessionalism. Those grievances, a result of neoliberal policies, can be found as well in other Arab states. The non-sectarian movement doesn’t have a clear ideological stance as Syriza or Podemos, but the process that it went through is useful for other movements. Ranging from street protests and single-issue platforms, the diverse movement developed towards a political project that encompasses several national issues in Lebanon.

The non-sectarian movement had successes, but there have been flaws as well. The focus of this research is the gradual process in which protest groups developed themselves. Several groups had been contesting the system since 2005, but the garbage crisis was the pivotal point that showed the potential. This 2015 momentum led to Beirut Madinati and still resonates in the 2018 campaign.

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1.1. Probleemstelling

In this research paper I will look at the emergence of the non-sectarian movement and how it managed to evolve from a protest movement to a political actor. Beside this social process, the specific factors from the Lebanese confessional state and its policies that gave rise to this movement will be incorporated. The political economy of post-war Lebanon and the civil engineering during the rebuilding of Beirut are crucial to get to this point. Therefore, the research will exist of a combination of literature on the Lebanese political system, the political economy and recent studies on several protest movements in Lebanon. For the analysis of the electoral campaign I conducted field research in Beirut from March till May 2018. To gather information, I spoke with activists, campaign managers and candidates of several movements. I attended campaign rallies, list presentations and the annunciation of the electoral results to gain insight in the different movements’ dynamics and their supporters.

The main research question is what the factors are that led to the emergence of the non-sectarian movement in Lebanon. All authors writing on protests note the factors that constrained previous non- sectarian protests, so what led to the massive appeal in the garbage crisis and the score of Beirut Madinati?

Important is also the aftermath of Beirut Madinati. While the party, founded for municipal elections, solely focused on local issues, a civil society movement with a national focus had to develop itself further on a political level. This gave rise to tensions among candidates and activist, who had differences on tactic for the 2018 elections. The process of transforming from one-issue protest movements and local parties to movements that had a program that answered all Lebanese issues nation-wide is a strong move in political maturity. How did this process go?

Another aspect of this research is the neoliberal policy of the Lebanese government since the end of the civil war. The reconstruction process of downtown Beirut became symbolic for this socio-economic transformation. The Lebanese confessional system adapted easily to the nature of neoliberal governance. This led to social protest in the 1990s, the environment in which non-sectarian civil society movements have their roots. As such, another research question is how the confessional system adapted neoliberalism and what the relation is between these policies and non-sectarian movements. The 2018 elections showed that among non-sectarian activist there was tremendous motivation but failure to breach out of their social circle. As such, the challenges for the non-sectarian movement are an important part of this dissertation. What internal and external challenges do this movement face and how will it develop itself?

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To sum up, this research examines the emergence of the non-sectarian movement and the factors that led to the transformation towards a political movement. This gradual process led to pivotal moments like the garbage crisis and Beirut Madinati, but there are still many challenges, what could be witnessed in the 2018 campaign.

1.2. Outline

To fully understand the economic base of the clientelist structure the formation of the Lebanese state and the confessional system needs to be integrated in this thesis. Though this period will be described briefly, The National Agreement of 1943 is still the power foundation of the sectarian leaders. Already in the post- independent decades it was contested by movements, but they had a different outlook and ideological project than today’s civil society. The civil war marked the end of the national agreement and the elite consensus. The Taif agreement that ended the civil war had serious modification but did not radically alter the state. The Lebanese society continued to be organized on a sectarian base, groups who rejected this premise were not able to get a platform.

The focus will start from the post-civil war period and the reconstruction project of Beirut and how that shaped the current socioeconomic context and the elite strategies to maintain their confessional stronghold. Though important, the focus will not be on the political developments and political parties but on the policy that has been maintained since the 1990s. The adoption of an extreme neoliberal rebuilding model led to social exclusion in the capital while the amnesia ruling in the Taif agreement led to the incorporation of former warlords in the political class. Sectarianism became strongly rooted in post-war Lebanon, which did not grant its citizens any notion of citizenship.

With the socioeconomic foundation in the background, the gradual emergence of the non-sectarian movement will be investigated. There have been several attempts of non-partisan organisations to rally people behind their cause or to try to alter the image of the Lebanese state. The movements in the garbage crisis and Beirut Madinati did not emerge out of nowhere. Throughout the past decades, several attempts to create non-sectarian movements have been made by civil society actors. Authors have described some of these protest in detail and elaborated on the reasons for their failure to mobilize the masses. With these factors in mind, the difference between previous protests and the garbage crisis is studied.

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After the garbage crisis, civil society actors wanted to continue the momentum and develop the movement further. The process that led to the creation of Beirut Madinati and the aftermath are pivotal for this, because for the first time a serious non-sectarian movement contended in an electoral process. The parliamentary elections of 2018 are the last but not the final stage of this process. There are critical differences between local and national elections, not only in Lebanon but worldwide. The strategic differences between movements shattered the image of a unified civil society, but this also led to a more mature political movement. The final analysis of this dissertation is this electoral campaign and the election results, with the factors in mind that made civil society able to mobilize the masses and get people behind their cause in 2015 and 2016. This part is based on my research paper published for Heinrich Böll Foundation office.

1.3. Concepts

In the literature, Lebanon is described as a corporate consociationalist system (Salloukh & Verheij, 2017). The sectarian divisions in the country and the power sharing agreement to manage the different religious communities were institutionalized by the national agreement. As such, the Lebanese state is based on cross-confessional elite-cooperation. The term consociationalism is linked to Arend Lijphart. Lijphart tried to explain the stability of ethnic fragmented states, that didn’t have majoritarian political systems and required the inclusion and cooperation of all groups instead. In his studies on ethnic diverse societies (religious, linguistic, ethnical), he described consociational system as states with two major characters and two minor ones.

At first, proportional inclusion of the different groups in society. This is based on a top-down elite decision- making process. This results in grand coalitions including all political players and opposition inside the government. All minorities have a veto power for major governmental or parliamentary decisions if they have enough votes. Consociationalism is based on incentives for elite cooperation whereas the communal masses are kept separately and governed by their communal elites. This segmental autonomy is the last character. Elites control the communities and keep them under control. By promoting intra-communal social relations, there are no incentives for masses for inter-communal activities. Consociationalism also assumes pluralism and frequent intercommunal dialogue (Haddad, 2009).

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Lebanon’s specific system is labelled as confessional in the literature. The predetermined religious seats in the parliament and the absence of any civil law gave a strong role to religion for organizing the state. This process is described in the section on Lebanese state formation

Authors distinguish between corporate and liberal consociationalist models. Salloukh and Verheij explain the difference as “pre-determined and “self-determined” (Salloukh & Verheij, 2017, p.150). Corporate consociationalism sees ethnic as a fixed identity that is internally homogenous and doesn’t give incentives for political project transcending the communal group. The liberal form sees identity through a constructionist perspective and rewards salient political projects, that can be based on religion but also on sub or trans group identities.

Consociationalism was seen by Lijphart as either a reason for explaining stability in divided societies or a way to reach a political settlement in divided societies. The success of this model is not accepted by all scholars. The most influential critic is Horowitz’s. His three points of critic are that consociationalism doesn’t have the aim to surpass or abolish ethnic conflicts but accept the cleavages. The assumption that a majority will give in voluntarily its dominant position for minority veto is a second point while Horowitz also sees proportional representation as further polarizing voter blocs (Haddad, 2009, pp.399-400).

Lijphart sees Lebanon as a consociation democracy, but Horowitz doesn’t agree with this point. He sees the confessional system as hybrid, with some consociational points but not fully matching this system (Mccullough, 2016; Haddad, 2009). Mccullough sees consociationalism not appropriate for studying Lebanese politics, because the institutions are flawed, and the procedures not followed. The mainstream consociational approach is seen by Baumann as leading to an “unhealthy fascination with the mechanisms of power-sharing” (Baumann, 2016a, p.635).

The focus of this research is not on consociational governing in Lebanon, but the confessional system needs to be incorporated. While confessionalism sounds more neutral, interviewees during research used the more negative connotation sectarian regime. Non-sectarian political movements are not opponents of conflict-regulating mechanisms, but of the confessional state and its sectarian leaders.

Since the end of the Syrian occupation, Lebanon saw a gradual rise of protest movements on a non- sectarian base. Important is how they link corruption to the confessional, post-civil war system. Scholars have written a lot on the impact of the neoliberal reconstruction of Beirut. The high level of corruption led for political economy analysis and how sectarian leaders divided economic spoils between each other

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(Baumann, 2016a; Leenders, 2012). The reconstruction process of Solidere and Beirut’s urban design led to several more socio-spatial publications (Krijnen & Fawaz, 2010; Kastrissianakis, 2015; Nagle, 2016).

The recurring protest in Beirut has as such often been studied under the neoliberal scope, because of the link between political economy and social struggle (Leenders, 2012; Traboulsi, 2014; Baumann 2016b). The non-sectarian movement has its roots in the protest movements from the 1990s that focused on economic or social topics. Traboulsi argues that the sectarian structure penetrated all areas in society, including the economic field. Sectarianism is beside a religious-political relation also an economic relation (Traboulsi, 2014, pp. 17-19). As such, socio-economic protests in Lebanon but also worldwide cannot be seen separate from the political economy of the entity in which they occur. Further one, the link between confessionalism and neoliberal governance has also been made by academics, labelling the reconstruction of Beirut as neoliberal ethno-communalism (Nagle, 2016).

In this research, I use the term non-sectarian civil society movement. While non-sectarian in a Lebanese context is a strong political positioning of opposing the system, civil society is less clear and contested. In general, it is used for non-state actors that are active outside the mainstream political centre. Lebanon witnessed an active civil society in the garbage crises and the municipal elections.

I make use of Zeina el-Helou her conceptualization of the Lebanese civil society (El-Helou, 2018). The candidates from this movement come from outside the mainstream sectarian political parties. They rally on a secular, environmental, anti-corruption cause. As such, civil society groups are the political opposite of the establishment. Mainstream Lebanese parties mobilize on a confessional base and use their position to maintain a patron-client relation with their constituency. By contrast, civil society groups don’t claim any sectarian base and are outside the current clientelist system.

With several strategies, the sectarian elites succeeded in countering them. By co-opting parts of their programme, traditional parties were for example able to counter NGO’s on environmentalism or they try to infiltrate in the movements (Nagel & Staeheli, 2015, pp. 12-13). A typical strategy is depicting protesters as foreign agents with one aim: destabilize the country. Therefore, Beirut Madinati was a breaking point. It was able to withhold those threats and represent a large part of the population that disapproves the sectarian system.

The political active civil society labels itself as non-sectarian. This means that they oppose the current sectarian representation system and aim to transcend it. The label antisectarian might seem more accurate for their political position, but non-sectarian is commonly used by activists and academics. John Nagle has

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written intensively on non-sectarian social movements in Lebanon that advocate ecological, social or civil issues. He distinguishes between transformationist movements and pluralist ones. Transformationists aim to abolish the confessional system, such as the sectarian seat allocation and the absence of civil law. Nagle puts the #You Stink movement under this transformationist lable, as their demands quickly went beyond solving the trash crises, but transformationist movements can also deal with specific aspects instead of broad-platforms (Nagle, 2017, pp. 191-193; Nagle, 2012; Nagle, 2016).

Lebanese transformationists are more direct in seeking to end state sanctioned sectarianism, such as the use of the ethnic quotas to determine political representation and public positions, and the role of religion in governing public life. As such, with Beirut Madinati in the municipal elections and several political movements in the 2018 elections building further on this momentum, the political movements coming out of civil society are studies in this paper as transformationist one. The three characteristics of El-Helou can also be put in this transformationist perspective of Nagle: refraining from any sectarian claim, adopting a rights-based discourse and not participating in the clientelist network and not affiliating with any regional bloc (El-helou, 2018, p.1).

The other part of the research handles with the challenges that this movement faces, both external and internal. This through an analysis of the campaign of the civil society movement and its electoral results of May 2018. During my period as research intern at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Beirut, I researched intensively on this topic. Although the campaign has been held on a professional level, this didn’t result in an electoral victory. This due to constraints of the confessional system and the Lebanese way of campaigning, but also because the movement has problems with reaching out of its convinced and dedicated social circle.

With the political and economic foundations of the confessional system in mind, the emergence of the non- sectarian movement will be studied. The first protest movement in the 1990’s was opposing the neoliberal socio-economic policies. Their critique was incorporated in the civil society movement, who linked it to their political contestation of the system and their aim to abolish the sectarian system.

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2. Post-independent Lebanon

2.1. State structure

After two decades of French mandate ruling, Lebanon was granted independence in 1943. France was given tutelage over Lebanon and Syria after World War I. By then, there was not yet a distinction between the two neighbouring states, beside the Mount Lebanon governate that had gained autonomy after the 1860 conflict between Druze and Maronite Christians. Since then, the had been dominant in this governate (see annex for map). Through lobbying with the French authority during the mandate, Maronite leaders succeeded in the establishment of Greater Lebanon. This protectorate had incorporated the coastal, Sunni towns and the Southern and Eastern predominantly Shia regions (see annex for map) (Sorby, 2010).

Lebanon is a religious diverse state, with 18 recognized religions. For establishing state structures, the Christian and Sunni leaders agreed on the National Pact, an unofficial agreement to keep confessional balance. Post-independent Lebanon had no religious community that constituted the majority, it was a state made up by minorities. The national agreement between Khoury and Riad el-Solh divided the power between the different sects, resulting in a sectarian distribution key for the parliament and high-ranking government positions. The parliament was divided on a 6:5 ratio between Christians and Muslims while the presidential seat was reserved for a Maronite Christian. The Sunni’s agreed on the position for prime minister while the Shia got the parliamentarian speaker. With the necessity of cross-confessional cooperation, the agreement promoted elite consensus but had no incentives to transcend confessional identities kept the population separated among confessional lines.

The sectarian divisions of the population were cemented in the civil law. Till today, the Lebanese are not allowed to have a civil marriage, only a religious. Inter-confessional marriages are not permitted, one of the partners has to convert to the others religion. All person related issues, such as marriage, divorce and inheritance are under supervision of religious courts and rulings, while there is no state institution for dealing with these cases.

Baumann labels the post-independent ruling class as Zu’ama, confessional leaders from the merchant class and landowners (Baumann, 2016a, p.19). The agreement bound them together in the Lebanese state

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formulated as a state with a “visage arabe.” This formulation kept the mainly Sunni nationalist Arab leaders committed to a sovereign Lebanese state while it meant for Christians that Lebanon was part of the Arab region but not an Arab state. As such, Sunni leaders refrained from unification demands with Syria while Christian leaders renounced external, French tutelage (Salloukh, 2015, p.135). They never had the aim to establish a strong state. Independent institutions would challenge their position as service-provider and disturb the patronage network.

Unlike the regional neighbours, Lebanon did not have a strong state with capable decision-making institutions. The laisser-faire model of Lebanon made the country attractive for foreign investors and a growing banking sector with a low taxation regime. For maintaining their dominant position in their religious community, confessional leaders kept socio-economic institutions and education under a sectarian level instead of a state level (Baumann, 2016a, p.19). Parliamentary seats became a tool for distributing state services, though at a low level. Most public services were run through charities or private institutions on a sectarian base. The relation between parliamentarians and their constituency is described as a patron- client one. With parliamentary seats passed from father to son, the Lebanese system gave birth to political dynasties from ruling families. This resulted in a political culture with a low transparency level where corruption became an accepted practice.

Traboulsi calls the post-independent ruling bourgeoisie in Lebanon an oligarchy, a consortium of 30 families in control of the country’s economy, in the financial, service and land-owning sector (2014, pp.32-33). This oligarchy had its presence in the parliament, defined as “an assembly of sectarian and regional notables” (Traboulsi, 2014, p.78). The government became a tool for the business class their interests and paving the root for political feudalism. Landowners went for political presentation, which further established their patronage networks towards their confessional community.

For their interest, the consortium reshaped the Lebanese agricultural and industrial economy towards the financial banking hub of the region. The free market system and laisser-faire model of Lebanon was the most benefitting for the bourgeoisie. By limiting state power and interfering solely for own interest, parliament legislative role was limited. As intermediary between the West and the Arab hinterland, Lebanon was able to become the regional hub for finances, services, tourism and after the coups in Syria and Egypt, Beirut became the financial capital of the Middle East (Traboulsi, 2014, p.79). Maronites held the dominant political and economic positions in post-independent Lebanon. Demands to alter towards a more confessional balance and limit the presidential powers came mostly from Sunni voices, but they did not question the nature of the confessional system.

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2.1.1. Challenging the system

A more fundamental challenge towards the Lebanese bourgeoisie came according to Baumann (2016a) from two sides. A first contender were the technocrats around president Fouad Chehab. The ‘Chehabists’ expanded the scope of institutions, to put more state control on the laisser-faire economy to reach more social and economic development. By empowering state institutions and establishing for example the central bank, Chehab undermined the patronage network of the Zu’ama, who lost their total control of state resources. His political legacy consists of small state institutions to redirect capital, in contrary to the minimal confessional state that had been present since independence (Baumann, 2016a).

Baumann notes a second challenge for the Zu’ama, mass protest movements. Migration towards the cities led to this urban phenomenon. Out of the reach of their rural Zu’ama and ignored by politicians in the city, people started to mobilize. Migrants often ended in the suburbs of Beirut, near’ the Palestinian refugee camps. The militarization of the Palestinian factions and the authority given to them to maintain security in the camps made them a powerful actor, especially after the PLO leadership was expelled from Jordan to Beirut. Although Baumann doesn’t specify on those mass protest movements nor gives concrete example, the challenge they compose has to been seen under a regional level. The Arab cold war polarized the region in a pro-Western camp of conservative monarchies 1 against pan-Arab nationalists. The Nasserite project of the United Arab Republic, a confederation of Egypt and Syria, was met with hostility by most Lebanese Christian Zu’ama, while Muslim politicians had sympathy for this project because of their political and economic marginalization. Sunni’s who felt marginalized rallied together with non-Muslims who were discontent with president Chamoun’s rising authoritarianism. The internal political crises became internationalized due to the regional tensions and the cold war.

In the 1958 Lebanese conflict, leftist parties like the and Nasserists fought against the pro-Western Chamoun. The Eisenhower administration supported the government of Camille Chamoun and intervened in Beirut after the Hashmeti Iraqi monarchy was overthrown. The U.S.- intervention ended the civil conflict but did not bring fundamental constitutional changes, although the cabinet was divided 50/50 between Muslims and Christians. Sorby notes how internal conflicts in Lebanon always gets intensified because of regional tensions: When the Arabs were at peace with each other, generally Lebanon too was at peace with itself and with its neighbours. But when the Arab countries were

1 Jordan, and

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engaged in intrigue and plotting against each other, Lebanon, because of its circumstances, was bound to be involved. (Sorby, 2000, p.84).

A bigger threat to Lebanon were the socioeconomic geographical disparities. The mainly Christian region of Mount Lebanon benefitted the most from economic development and attracted the most government spending while dominant Muslim regions in the North, South and Beqaa were neglected. Makdisi and Khalil explain this as an urban bias, with a government focusing on services that neglected rural areas (Makdisi & Khalil, 2013, p.10), while Sorby sees the termination of the custom and monetary union of Lebanon and Syria as the start of the economic decay of Tripoli and the North of Lebanon (Sorby, 2000, p.79).

The post-independent, ‘Merchant’ republic served clearly the interest of a specific class which refused any altering to their position and the system. While the technocrats were challenging the political position of the Zu’ama, they were not challenging the nature of the confessional system. Baumann doesn’t elaborate on the mass protest movements, but the leftist and Arab nationalist opposed the confessional division. The leftist bloc, Lebanese National Movement, founded by Druze-leader had the aim to abolish the confessional system. Gathering Shia’s, Sunni, Palestinians and left-wing Christians against the Maronite dominated government, this bloc wanted to alter the Lebanese state to a secular socialist one. However, although Baathist and secularist parties challenged the confessional state, they mobilized as well on a sectarian base and suffered from the same undemocratic tendencies as traditional sectarian parties. The Progressive Socialist Party for example wanted to abolish the confessional system and establish secularism but didn’t get votes beyond the Druzes. Sectarian Political parties in Lebanon are till today family-like entrepreneurship. Several political names from the 1950s and 60s still appear today. The party’s chairman position gets passed from father till son, just like their parliamentary seat and there is no internal democracy.2

2.2. civil war

After rising tensions, the broke out on 13th April 1975. The presence of Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization escalated the differences between the two political blocs. The Muslim- left Lebanese National Movement saw support to the Palestinian cause as a national duty for all Lebanese

2 For example: The Gemayel’s in , Jumblat’s in PSP, Chamoun’s in National Liberal Party.

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and as such glad to have an alliance with the powerful PLO militias, while the Christian-right bloc Lebanese Front had, in gradations, sympathy towards this cause but opposed the presence and control of Palestinian militias.

Just like in 1958, internal divisions got intensified through regional alliances and interests. The Palestinian presence was the trigger to the war, but not the cause. There are different academic interpretations on the reasons for this 15-year long conflict. For Marxist scholars like Traboulsi (2014), it represented a struggle between upper and working class, while others see it more from a demographic perspective (Makdisi & Khalil, 2013). The socio-economic disparities led to rising inequality about the welfare distribution, beside the urban migration. The demographic tensions gave influence to syndicates and leftist student movements (Makdisi & Khalil, 2013, p.11). The Lebanese civil war started as internal conflict between a revisionist and a status-quo bloc, but the conflict changed rapidly on a fight about the Lebanese state and political system. Syria and intervened to change the outcome in their favour, while regional powerhouses like Saudi Arabia and Iran had their agenda as well. Though often portrayed as a Christian-Muslim conflict, some of the most violent episodes took place within religious groups (Gaub, 2015).

Although both blocs had members from other confessional groups, the civil war intensified sectarian identities and communities. People didn’t engage beyond their own community while militia leaders took control of the state institutions. The civil war marked the failure of the consociational model and ended the dominance of the traditional confessional leaders. Instead, two new political classes emerged: militia leaders rich gulf contractors. The bourgeoisie’s monopoly didn’t cease to exist but had to share influence with these new political players.

Militia leaders used their influence to gain control over state institutions. Instead of dismantling the state, they restructured institutions to use the services for expand their patronage network. Chehabists remained another factor, President Elias Sarkis for examples established the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR). This powerful state institution was formed for later reconstruction purposes and its control was strategic for political camps. Beside Chehabist institutions, councils were also created for the benefits of militia leaders. The council of the South gave Amal-leader further political control over the Shia community in Lebanon (Baumann, 2016a). Makdisi & Khalil see the civil war as a period in which the Lebanese state expanded. In contrast to the pre-war bourgeoisie, militia leaders welcomed expanded services to further expand their patronage network, which led the to a public debt rising to 100 percent of the GDP (Makdisi & Khalil, 2013).

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The gulf contractors were Lebanese emigres who benefitted from the oil boom and gained capital abroad. The figure associated with this group is Rafiq Hariri, who became Saudi-Arabia’s man in Lebanon and led the reconstruction phase. Hariri evolved from a leading figure in the Sunni community to the person who arranged, with Saudi tutelage, the political settlement for ending the war. Because of his non-militia background and enormous financial resources, Hariri was the spill linking the Chehabist technocrats, militia leaders and traditional Zu’ama bourgeoisie in the Taif agreement (Baumann, 2016a).

2.3. Post-Taif and reconstruction

2.3.1. Taif agreement and Syrian presence

The Taif agreement in 1989 ended the 15-year long civil war, signed by the surviving parliamentarians and gathered by Rafiq Hariri in the Saudi town. Under Saudi-Syrian understanding, the Sunni prime minister and Shia speaker of parliament were given more power. The confessional balance in the parliament was altered and the presence of the Syrian army officially accepted, but Taif didn’t change the confessional system drastically. The presidential dominance came to an end, his executive powers were transferred to the cabinet, while the parliament’s position was also strengthened. This was in the benefit of the Sunni prime minister and Shia speaker, who gained more influence. One article in the Taif agreement aimed for deconfessionalizing the state but its recommendations were vague and got never implemented by the next legislature (Salloukh, 2010).

Monterescu & Ali see the Taif agreement as the decisive moment when the sectarian system transformed from a convention towards a “sacred text”. Taif settled the power balances at the end of the war and led to the incorporation of sectarian warlords who were given absolute legitimacy over their community (Monterescu & Ali, 2016, p.169). While Taif was a peace agreement for reinstating the power-sharing consensus, it did not reform the corporate nature of the confessional system and fix the pre-war disparities. Sectarian identity stayed rigid, with pre-determined quotas for executive, legislature positions, which was reflected in the public sector (Salloukh & Verheij, 2017, p.154).

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Much of the leading politicians were warlords in the civil war. Rather than laying the foundations of proper governance, the confessional political leadership was more concerned with sticking to power (Bassel & Salloukh, p.14). During the civil war, Lebanon became a trading hotspot for illicit trade. Smuggle and drugs sale were an important income for militia leaders. The Taif accord and collective amnesia incorporated the militia leaders in the political system. This did not weaken the position of the former war lords but led to the institutionalization of the sectarian militia network into the government (Myntii, 2013). With this notion of impunity, militia leaders took over the state and restructured it as resource for patronage (Baumann, 2016a, p. 36).

The Syrian presence wasn’t met with critic or pressure from the international community by that time, because of Hafez Assad’s support for the 1991 Gulf war and the cooperative Saudi-Syrian understanding on the Lebanese file. Rafik Hariri, prime minister and Saudi Arabia’s man in Lebanon oversaw the economic field while and the Syrian intelligence took care of security and foreign affairs. Through its dominant presence in Lebanon, Syria imposed its will by penetrating civil, political and security institutions, supported by Lebanese allies. As such, according to Salloukh (2010, p.137), Syria was the main spoiler of the post-war democratic transition. Politicians and parties opposed to the Syrian dominance were marginalized or banned, from which the Christian opposition suffered the most. Lebanese politicians had to play along the Syrian rules if they had any ambitions for staying in office. Under Syrian tutelage, the president shifted the decision-making process from the cabinet towards the non-official “Troika”. These are the Maronite President, the Sunni prime minister and the Shia speaker of parliament. As such, the separation of powers was not respected, while Hariri’s ascend to prime minister led to growing nexus between politics and business groups (Salloukh, 2010; Traboulsi, 2014).

2.3.2. From Liberalism to Neoliberalism

The period establishing after the Taif accord in the beginning of the 1990s was the height of U.S. unilateralism and neoliberal economic consensus. Rafiq Hariri had the ambition to give Lebanon back its position as economic hub for the region. Already during civil war, Hariri took control through the CDR for reconstructing (Baumann, 2016a). According to Baumann and Leenders, the civil war was not only about shifting sectarian influence but also about the post-economic order. As real-estate contractor in Saudi- Arabia, Hariri represented the class interests of the new bourgeoisie that had replaced the previous one.

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They benefitted from the minimal ‘welfare state’ for retaining their economic interests and dominant confessional position, but the state expanded under control of the militia leaders. As business man and no militia history, Hariri had less interest in welfare agencies to provide patronage to his constituency. He described Lebanon’s civil war economic as a bureaucratic and overregulated one (Baumann, 2016a, p.52).

Neoliberalism is often seen as a counter policy towards welfare regimes, whether it is post-war Europe or development states in the Global South. Lebanon had a minimal state with almost no public services after independence and the power of state institutions and state expenditure was, even though expanded, still low. As such, neoliberalism might not seem appropriate for describing the changes in economy and government policy. Baumann’s description of neoliberalism gives a good understanding on why this perspective is useful to apply on Lebanon from the 1990s on. While liberalism relies on a weak, “night watch” state, neoliberalism needs a strong state and institutions to re-regulate and roll back the state. Lebanon is not a unique case in the field of neoliberalism, but it differs from most other countries in its minimal state predating the neoliberal transformation. While the classical, minimalist liberal economic state benefitted the bourgeoisie in the pre-war period, the dominant class had changed in the civil war period. Militia leaders relied on state institutions for patronage network, but the man in charge of the economic field in Lebanon was Hariri, a real estate billionaire. The Lebanese gulf expats had a different economic interest and tried to attract capital for investments (Baumann, 2016a).

The period after Taif is associated with a new era of neoliberal policies aimed to reinstate Beirut as regional hub, with investments in public infrastructure, a new international airport and large-scale development projects (Krijnen & Fawaz, 2010). A lot has been written about the reconstruction process in Beirut. There is a strong academic consensus about the neoliberal approach. During civil war, Beirut lost its position as hub for trade between East and West. Hariri and his entourage had the ambition to reclaim this position for attracting foreign investors and capital. Their ambition set the reconstruction process in motion and promised to rebuild the economic system along the pre-war conditions, ignoring the social inequality factors that contributed to the civil war (Traboulsi, 2014). This project wanted to improve Beirut’s competitiveness and resulted in a separate, elite space in the city. Typical results from a neoliberal urban construction template argues Baumann (2016a, p.59). Baumann and Leenders focus on the economic benefits that resulted from the construction process, either calling it a rent-mechanisms or “spoils of corruption” (Baumann, 2016a; Baumann, 2016b Leenders, 2012).

The economic surplus from the post-war reconstruction period resulted in “rent-creation mechanisms”, excessive profits earned from government intervention in the market (Baumann, 2016). The most

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important financial mechanism was currency stabilisation, important for foreign investment and a sign of political stability. Using his connections and allies in the banking sector, Hariri stabilised the Lebanese Lira by financial tools such as high-interest rates on governmental debt instruments, but this led to a drastic increase of the public debt.3 The most visible part of the post-war reconstruction plan was the reconstruction of Downtown Beirut by Solidere. Next to financial gains, this real estate project reshaped the social cohesion and public space in the capital.

2.3.2.1. Solidere and reconstruction

The Lebanese state wasn’t perceived as strong enough to head the reconstruction project. Therefore, this was delegated to a private company under the supervision of the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR). Original property rights were transferred to a private company, Solidere. As such, the reconstruction process and budget were out of parliamentary control. For Baumann, the CDR was essential in the neoliberal transformation from post-war Lebanon headed by Hariri. This institution was used as a tool by Hariri to reshape the Lebanese state in a neoliberal way and to get rid from governmental control. By appointing protégés both as CDR and Solidere head, he could control this process completely (Baumann, 2016a). Solidere was given rights to expropriate city-centre properties and could conduct its own masterplan. It transformed the city centre by replacing the traditional souks with a shopping mall, constructed gated communities and put exclusive clubs at the waterfront. Nagle (2016, p.6) describes the logic behind this gentrification process as twofold: an external projection to construct an image of the city as global centre to restore Beirut’s position as regional hub, and internally to rebuild the centre as national symbol.

Beside the economic gains that Hariri his entourage got from this project, Solidere project became symbolic for the neoliberal urban construction process of tower blocs all over Beirut, described in other research (Krijnen & Fawaz, 2010). Solidere became a contested project and faced many criticisms from protestors, activists and researchers, ranging from reinstating sectarian divisions in the city, laying the foundations for upcoming socio-political unrest and curtailing the right to the city for resident (Nagle, 2016a, p. 2; Fawaz, 2009). It resulted in an artificial, deterritorialized city centre without any social connection to other part of

3 For a detailed description, I refer to Baumann, 2016, pp. 70-81.

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the city. For Makdisi, the hybrid public-private process in which Solidere operated represented “the ultimate expression of the dissolution of any real distinction between public and private interest” (Makdisi, 1997, p.672).

Further on, Solidere erased Beirut’s past and any memories to the devastating civil war. Till today, Beirut lacks proper public space where civilians can meet and engage with each other. Activist see this lack of public space not only as a gift to real-estate developers but also as being done on purpose to keep citizens from different religious backgrounds separated.4

2.3.2.2. Service ministries and labour protests

An important stimulus for post-civil war politicians to form cross-confessional agreements is the access to state resources that go along with them. By playing on the sectarian rules, politicians can maintain and expand their patronage networks. Baumann notes how the rising budgets under Hariri’s government ran counter with the neoliberal trickle-down logic. Although anchoring Lebanon in neoliberal logic, Hariri had to bargain with sectarian former warlords for their cooperation in his government, for who patronage over state resources was political survival. The sectarian patronage networks didn’t cease to exist, they magnified in size due to the interest of former militia leaders in government. The population remained dependent on resources controlled by confessional leaders, which is the economic basis of the sectarian system and central to the reproduction of the sectarian identity (Baumann, 2016a).

The consociational mechanism of Taif were ignored by succeeding governments and the decision-making process confined itself to the troika, while the parliament had a less significant role. With cabinets ranging to 30 ministers, the division of ministerial posts is a severe competition. In general, authors and press distinguish between sovereign ministries and service ministries. When in charge of a sovereign ministry (defense, foreign affairs, interior, and finance), the minister has a great level of autonomy without a lot of control from the prime minister. Service ministries (health, public works, telecommunications, and social affairs) go along with huge budgets for services that are neutral in other states. In Lebanon, these are used as patronage resource (Karam, 2016, p.4).

4 Personal interview with Gilbert Doumit, conducted at 16/05/2018

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Karam and Baumann both use the Council of the South and the Ministry of the Displaced as the most obvious cases of service ministries. Both got dominated by former warlords – respectively Walid Jumblatt and Nabih Berri – who used it to keep their community – respectively the Druze and the Shia- under their control. The Council of the South was founded during the war with Berri heading it. Karam sees this ministry as essential for Berri’s rise in the Shia community, while Baumann explains the patron-client logic of this ministry. By appointing civil servants and heading the reconstruction of regions that are dominated by his community – Shia, Berri became an indispensable person in Lebanese politics and is speaker of parliament since 1992. Same story for the ministry of displaced. At first, it was established for the benefits of the more than 500,000 internal displaced Lebanese from whom the majority suffered from poverty. After the ministry came under Jumblatt his control, he focused the resources on Druze and Maronites stemming from the Chouf region, his electoral constituency (Karam, 2016, p.4; Baumann, 2016a, p.83).

Under Hariri’s, the expenses of welfare agencies and state institutions rose, contrary to neoliberal logic. President Hrawi’s military background and former warlord’s confessional priorities led to constant bargaining on further military expenses and expanding service ministries. The elite incorporation and integration of warlords on which the Lebanese system is based might seem as an instrument for post-war stability and peace. However, the 1990s had major governmental crises and sectarian polarization, benefitting the ruling class and obstructing non-confessional groups (Makdisi & Khalil, 2012). Post-Taif Lebanon had high economic growth numbers, because of the private sector investments and the expenditures of the public sector. Beside resulting in an increasing public debt, the macro-economic growth didn’t benefit all Lebanese. The rising unemployment and increased corruption led to the concentration of wealth in the hands of the elite, combined with huge regional disparities (Makdisi & Khalil, 2012, p.16). Lower and middle classes incomes fell and the number of families living in poverty rose, while wealth became concentrated in the upper economic classes (Traboulsi, 2014).

Nagle describes the result of the reconstruction of Lebanon and its economy as “neoliberal ethno- communalism” (2016, p.3). A main force contesting the socioeconomic developments was the labour movement. Already in 1992, trade unionist protested the neoliberal policies that sidelined social and welfare demands. The syndicalist movement had been part of the pre-war bloc contesting the pre-war political and economic order, but never aimed at any sectarian power redistribution, their focus was economic. It remained a strong force in the civil war, the only non-sectarian movement capable of standing of against the militia’s. The General Confederation of Workers (GCW) became the focal point for contesting neoliberal policies and the confessional elite. Strikes and demonstrations demanding more welfare

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spending challenged Hariri’s reconstruction project (Baumann, 2016). In their study on elite strategies for containing and obstructing cross-sectarian and non-confessional movements, Clark & Salloukh (2013, pp. 733-734) describe how the elite kept the labour movement in place through state repression, election interferences and penetrating the councils with party affiliates.

With Syrian approval, Hariri reshaped the Lebanese state while any real opposition was not given a chance. The post-Taif decade was crucial for laying the foundations of the current sectarian political economy and the clientelist system. The corruption and social disparities that went along with this process gave rise to grievances but not any mass mobilizations beside labour protests. Giving up a confessional identity alignment is till today a high cost in Lebanon. A person gives up future employment opportunities and social services that go along with political clientelism. The understanding between the Syrian regime and Hariri and his international allies was fruitful in the first decade after the war but deteriorated in the new millennium due to the regional tensions.

3. Cedar revolution

After 9/11, international pressure mounted on the Assad regime. The Bush administration designed Syria as part of the of the axis-of-evil, which put Damascus at odds with the regional and international supporters of Hariri, specifically Saudi Arabia, France and the USA. As seen in previous internal Lebanese conflicts, ethnic divisions become violent conflict when regional tensions heighten. The discussion on the extension of president Lahoud’s mandate became an internationalized issue. Syria’s allies supported the extension, the Christian opposition objected while Hariri tried to lobby against this move. The 2004 UNSCR resolution 1559, introduced by the USA and Chirac, opposed this extension and called for the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon and Hezbollah’s disarming. The close relation between Hariri and Chirac made the Syrian regime suspicious and designed the Saudi-ally as a treat (Baumann, 2016a). As such, in 2004 a series of attempts and political assassinations started on pro-Western Lebanese politicians.5The regional and international cooperative climate of the 1990s was completely gone, which had strong repercussions on Lebanon domestically. Several pro-Western and opposition Lebanese politicians were assassinated,

5 The first attempt was on Marwan Hamadeh, critic of Syria.

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allegedly by the threatened Syrian regime and its allies in Lebanon. The most prominent one was ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

The brutal attempt on 14th February 2005 sparked mass protest in Lebanon, but also polarized the political scene in two opposing blocs. The marginalized Christian politicians formed a pro-Western bloc with Hariri’s Sunni party, while the pro-Syrian, mainly Shia parties formed a bloc as well. The two blocs held mass demonstrations, respectively on March 8th, which gave name to the pro-Syrian bloc, and March 14th, which gave name to the pro-Western bloc. Both blocs confined themselves to the regional dominant players. March 14 got support from Saudi Arabia and the USA while March 8 cemented itself in the resistance alliance with Syria and Iran.

These protests were labelled as the Cedar revolution in Western media, named after the several colour revolutions in post-soviet states6while domestic media opted for the independence intifada (Kurtulus, 2009, p.196). The gradual withdrawal of Syrian forces paved hope for a full-fledged democratic transition, but the post-Syrian phase led to further polarization of sectarian identities. After Sunni and Shia dominance during the de facto Syrian protectorate, Christian politicians and confessional leaders aimed to restore the balance. The return of exiled general from Paris and the prison release from the leader of the Christian militia Samir Geagea seemed at first to restore Maronite balance, but the Christian vote got shattered between those two blocs.

During the Syrian occupation, Aoun had become a symbol of the opposition and was popular among university students. After the Syrians left, he returned from exile and his (FPM- supported the pro-Western bloc. Christian leaders such as Geagea became the main forces in March 14, together with Sunni politicians headed by Rafiq’s son, . Aoun’s political ambitions led to rivalry with the other March 14 leaders and his party got rejected from the government. As reaction, the FPM and Hezbollah signed a memorandum of understanding, an agreement that shifted Aoun’s decade-long political position and cemented the FPM in the mainly Shia March 8 bloc.

FPM was supposed to be non-sectarian and had the aim to transit Lebanon beyond confessionalism, but it didn’t get votes beyond its Maronite base. Once it joined the 2008 government, the party got quickly incorporated in the sectarian system and the appointments based on confessional affiliation. Aoun is an interesting example of how Lebanese political movements can claim a non-sectarian project but fail to put it in practice. His appeal among youth and university students showed that his discourse was popular, but

6 ‘the Orange Revolution’ in Ukraine, ‘the Velvet Revolution’ in Georgia and ‘the Tulip Revolution’ in Kyrgyzstan

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he received a lot of votes due to his actions as military commander in the civil war. The present non- sectarian social movements stem from a different background than the current leading Lebanese politicians, of whom most have an active civil war past.

The cedar revolution marked a new, uncertain phase in 2005 Lebanese politics after years of Syrian domination. Recurring crises after 2005 for electing the president led to several political deadlocks, which got intensified by regional powers. For details on this period, several authors have examined political events in this period (Haddad, 2009; Craigy, 2016).

The cedar revolution had for sure importance in breaking the era of Syrian dominance and reshaping the political balances in Lebanon. Beside these main events, the protests were also a start for non-sectarian movements to start mobilizing, though on a minor level. El-Helou sees the Cedar revolution as the starting point for the contemporary civil movements (see graph) (El-Helou, 2018, p.2). While this was the first time post-civil war Lebanon witnessed such a mass movement, the development started already in the 1990s. The social movements from the Cedar revolution have different features from the more traditional labour syndicates, which are more organized and integrated in the state.

(El-Helou, 2018, p.2) 1

Karam sees the 2005 protests as a conjuncture between bottom-up activists and orchestration from sectarian elites. The protests and demands became quickly incorporated by sectarian politicians for their

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interest in a post-Syrian Lebanese state (Karam, 2016, p.2). While literature doesn’t focus on these civil society movements in 2005 but rather on the leading politicians, El-Helou also sees 2005 as the first event in which the current non-sectarian civil society was able to manifest itself (El-Helou, 2018, p.4). Though individuals became to get mobilized in social movements contesting the confessional system and specific policies, the political split had also influence on the non-sectarian movements. All non-sectarian movements opposed the confessional system, but there were differences on who they focused and whether they contested Hezbollah’s arms. Several leading activists or civil society candidates had been active in either one of the March blocs but quit later, after none of the governments dominated by either one of the blocs was able to implement political transition.

3.1. Rise of the non-sectarian protest movement

This part will include an overview of different protest movements that can be labelled as non-sectarian that ranged from the civil society. With the cedar revolution as start, different phases will be looked at till the electoral campaign if 2018. While this might seem theological, this process acquired to a small group of activists that know each other for the most part and cooperated through different movements and actions.

Important is to look at who the protestors are socio-economic. They range from the youth, which is in Lebanese context the post-war generation. During the Syrian occupation, street protest led by the Lebanese left protested Hariri’s economic policy and Damascus control the country’s institutions. Students formed leftist political organization,7 while others formed the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE), a civil society organization for monitoring elections. Together with these student organizations, the Aounist youth started to crystalize. These networks were important in the protests later at the Cedar revolution (Yacoub, 2013, pp.93-94).

While the 2005 split between the March 8 and March 14 camp was mostly based on confessional affiliation, there was also one non-sectarian group part of March 14. This Democratic Left Movement (DML) was founded in 2004 by dissidents from the Lebanese Communist Party and other leftist sympathizers. The DLM

7 No Frontiers Group” at the American University of Beirut (AUB), the “Pablo Neruda Group” at the Lebanese American University (LAU), the “Tanyous Shaheen Group” at Saint Joseph University

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pillars were secularism and opposed to sectarianism. Its reasons for joining the March 14 bloc, constituted by other sectarian parties was to keep Lebanon independent and oppose Syrian influence.

Yacoub labels this Democratic Left Bloc as modest left, while the leftist movements affiliated with March 8, the Lebanese Communist Party and the People’s movement, as radical ones. They split on their views regarding the nature of the Syrian regime’s presence in Lebanon. While moderate left saw the neoliberal policies as integrally part of the Syrian occupation, radical left opposed Hariri’s policy as well but supported resistance forces allied with the Syrian regime. This split manifested itself in a divided left between the two March blocs.

Though DML leaders such as Elias Atallah and Samir Kassir8 were leading figures in the March 14 bloc, the party itself practically disintegrated and failed to be the start of a sustainable non-sectarian Lebanese movement. According to Yacoub, the DML took youth and student groups with them in their collapse (Yacoub, 2013, pp.98-100).

In 2006 a 33-day war broke out between Hezbollah and Israel, which had beside more than 1000 casualties also an impact on civil society organisations. Through emergency response from local networks, networks started to organize while it marked a breaking-point for current candidates9 to start with political engagement (El-Helou, 2018; Karam, 2018).

The Syrian withdrawal did not result in any political transition or accountability of the confessional elite. Though grievances were present, no real opportunity occurred for non-sectarian movements to mobilize. Organizational capacities grew, and networks developed further, but the non-sectarian movement missed further a common goal issues to rally around.

3.1.1. Arab spring

In 2011, protestors shook the Arab region. While effective in toppling regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, mobilization In Lebanon did not result in tremendous changes. Authors have given several reasons for the

8 was a Lebanese intellectual and history professor. He was an outspoken critic of the Syrian regime and assassinated by a car bomb on June 2nd 2005. 9 Two candidates, interviewed on respectively 18/04/2018 and 23/04/2018 noted how the 2006 war was a decisive moment for their current political engagement

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failure of the “people want to topple the sectarian regime” campaign. While in other Arab presidential countries protest targetted the president and his entourage, Lebanon’s regime is more fluid. A popular saying among activists is that Lebanon has 18 presidents, for each recognized community.10

Fakhoury notes that socio-economic factors, labelled as the roots of rage11 were also present in Lebanon, but there was no mass mobilization like in other countries. There is an academic consensus that Lebanon’s sectarian system prevented mass mobilization. The decisive factors – a unified frame and a favourable external context according to Fakhoury- were not present in Lebanon. As such, the 2011 protest movement were episodic, failed to mobilize the masses and missed a strong linkage between the agenda of the various groups (Fakhoury, 2014).

The political economy of the Lebanese system creates a patron-client relation between politicians and their constituency. Instead of a direct relation with the state, individuals are dependent on these sectarian politicians for access to state resources. Non-sectarian movements don’t have these possibilities but also refuse to partake in this system. The absence of material goods and symbolic politics is a reason for Hermez that the non-sectarian movement had little success (Hermez, 2011, p.532).

In their study of the 2011 protests in Lebanon, Monterescu and Ali note that the movement was started by youth from different backgrounds, who had in common their rejection of the current system. The status- quo that had been present since the Taif agreement gave rise to resentment among the post-war generation, who had different mindset than the older generation and had been already active in previous political activities. They were marginalized by the patronizing discourse and the politicians in charge, which had no answer for the political and socio-economic situation and the dismissal of the majority of Lebanon’s youth (Monterescu & Ali, 2016, p.173). The movement became an umbrella for different ideological and disenfranchised groups (LGBT, feminists, Palestinians, leftist) which could put their concerns on the movements’ agenda. Through discussion and attempts for public debates, the movement was able to create a narrative on the destructive effects of sectarianism politicians. Though at the height of the protest there were around 25,000 people, the movement disintegrated quickly. The loose structure, encompassing of different groups and inability to put practical request on the table that went beyond vague slogans made it difficult to stay unified.

10 Personal interview at 16/05 11 These roots of rage are economic disparities and dissatisfaction with political arrangements, important factors that led to the protests in Tunisia and Egypt and also present in Lebanon (Fakhoury, 2014, p.511).

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Another factor is the composition of the protestors. The majority were lower-middle class university graduates which had the opportunities to break from the traditional sectarian discourse in Lebanese politics. As such, it was hard for them to reach out beyond their social group, despite being class-sensitive. The movement suffered from middle-class anxieties and the majority stayed reformist to maintain their socio-economic position. The internal weakness led to the movements end, combined with the pressure from sectarian political parties, a position also shared by Kraidy and Fakhoury (Kraidy, 2016, p.20; Monterescu & Ali, 2016, pp..173-178; Fakhoury, 2014, p.514).

The Syrian civil war also divided activists. There were discussions which resulted into two camps, one who saw the events as a genuine popular uprising and another who feared a radical Sunni take-over and its implications for Lebanon. This ideological split in civil society has been present since the Cedar revolution and did not cease to exist till today.

3.1.2. Take Back Parliament

In 2012, a non-sectarian civil society group was founded in light of the parliamentary elections of 2013. Take back Parliament (TBP) gathered activists who aimed to overcome the sectarian political system. They interpreted the cleavages in Lebanon as economic instead of the sectarian ones. Their main problem was reaching out to people and inability to mobilize the masses. Secular activists mostly stem from an educated middle-class background whose non-sectarian discourse doesn’t’ resonate with the working class their demands.

After the parliament extended its mandate in 2013 due to security reasons, several civil society groups mobilized their supporters in front of the parliament. As well, they failed to mobilize the masses, gathering not more than 200 people according to an attendee.12 The political crisis that Lebanon went through didn’t motivate people to take the streets for movements advocating secularism.

The same constraints that authors used for the 2011 protests come back in the research paper of Maaroufi (2013). Activists were not able to stay united for a longer period and got divided when issues that divide Lebanon politically became issues in their own movement. What is important though, is that the link

12 Personal interview conducted on 18/04/2018

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between sectarianism and economic disparities became part of their discourse. As such, they were able to present a discourse, though not yet coherent. With the different stages of civil society protests since 2005 from El-Helou (2018) in mind, a build-up process and socialization among activists occurred. Calls for a secular state were connected to a just economic system. Another main pillar of non-sectarian, civil society movements was internal democracy. Most Lebanese parties are led as political dynasties, most of the times with a non-elected chairman that stays on for many years. This is not only a characteristic of sectarian parties, but also of more traditional left-leaning Lebanese parties. For example, the lack of internal democracy in the Lebanese Communist Party led to the foundation of the Democratic Left Movement, which had a shifting discourse from its initial party.

Take Back Parliament took the secular agenda for the first time from the street to a political level. A more concrete political plan led to the involvement of people who couldn’t identify with secular activism, but it was not yet coherent. The absence of a coherent political programme and a stance on national issues became a main point. Gathering people on a non-sectarian, secular base was possible but moving further on this common denominator was faced with challenges. Take Back Parliament had set its goals on the 2013 elections. Once those got postponed they were not able to continue to turn their platform in a sustainable non-sectarian movement (Maaroufi, 2013).

The previous protests were an important learning process, because activists admitted strategic mistakes and inability to mobilize the masses. None of these previous protest and social movements is seen in retro perspective as a success, but their attempts provided a starting point for later protests, such as the 2015 garbage crisis.

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4. Garbage crisis and Beirut Madinati

4.1. Garbage crisis

4.1.1. Events

Lebanon was suffering from a major political crisis since august 2014. The parliament, with its extended mandate, failed to elect a president after Michel Sleiman’s mandate ended. The political deadlock made that none of the two rivalling blocks wanted to give in on their candidate, Geagea for March 14 and Aoun for March 8. This led the government incapable of decision-making. The results of this political deadlock and failing confessional system were witnessed during the garbage crisis.

Garbage collection in Lebanon was delegated to the private sector in 1994. The allocation of contracts to Sukleen company included corruption and nepotism under the patronage of Rafiq Hariri.13 After the Lebanese government failed to prolong the contract and the main garbage dump had to be closed, trash started pilling up in the streets of Beirut. This became symbolic of everything that went wrong with the sectarian system. Protestors took the street after the government failed to prolong the contract of the trash collection. The failure of the government to provide a basic state service like garbage collection led to the so-called Garbage crisis. More than 100,000 people took the street, the biggest protest since the Cedar revolution in 2005 when the Syrians were forced to leave. Trash pilling up in the streets became quickly the symbol of a much larger political disease. The massive mobilization stemmed from a broader discontentment with the system: “because the protest is not just about garbage, it’s about everything.” (Kerbage, 2017, p.17).

For a detailed description of the events I refer to more specified papers,14 in this dissertation I will focus on the factors that gave rise to the movement and that made it have a sustainable impact. The movement was able to mobilize people on a non-sectarian and non-partisan base and transcended the sectarian boundaries. This was a challenge for the traditional confessional parties. A movement that rejected the

13 For a detailed description of public-private contract I refer to Leenders Spoils of truce (2012). 14 Kerbage (2017), Abu-Rish (2015)

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sectarian representation undermined the legitimation of confessional leaders that has been in place since Lebanese independence.

According to Abiyaghi et al. (2017), the movement was an exceptional moment in Lebanese political history, because it was a response to an emergency situation. As noted by Kraidy, the 2015 crisis was not the first- time garbage took demonstrators to the streets (Kraidy, 2016, p.22). Because trash collection is a basic state provision, people got easier mobilized then on more abstract ideals such as secularism. With the discourse around non-sectarian secularism that had been present since the 2011 protests, the movement quickly expanded beyond garbage and linked it to the socio-economic consequences of the political system.

The garbage crisis marks the starting point of a new page in the mobilization of non-sectarian movements according to Salloukh & Verheij (2015). The movement, which was labelled as Harak,15 incorporated quickly the absence of public space and the privatization of Downtown Beirut in their manifestations. Through reclaiming public space in their protest, the movement contested the neoliberal reconstruction process of the capital in which all war-memories have been wiped out and lacked any remembrance of the violent past. Already in 2011, the corruption was not only seen as a result of political sectarianism, but also a consequence of a political elite highly involved in a failed neoliberal system, without any checks and balances on their control on public resources (Hermez, 2011, p.533).

4.1.2. Actors

Both Kraidy (2016) and Abiyaghi et al (2017) interpreted the garbage protest in its initial phase as a Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) movement. Kinder (2016) describes NIMBY as a phenomenon in which people oppose “the locating of something undesirable into one’s neighbourhood”. While NIMBY has a negative connotation in Western context, NIMBY movements quickly have demands beyond their initial goal (Kraidy, 2016).16 The protests were initiated by a local group17 that wanted to close the Naameh landfill. That landfill was opened in 1998 as temporary solution but kept open since then, regardless of the negative consequences for the local inhabitants of the Naameh neighbourhood. As such, the protests quickly attracted people who had

15 Harak is Arabic for movement. This term was widely used by Lebanese and regional media. 16 In Western context, NIMBY movements often contest social service projects, for example drugs-related or rehabilitation initiatives (Kinder, 2016). 17 Close Nameeh landfill

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been active in social movements in previous years. Protestors demanded a sustainable solution to the crisis and denounced the collusion of private companies,18 the Lebanese government and the sectarian parties.

Two movements dominated the garbage protests, You Stink and We Want Accountability, while there were other, smaller groups as well.19 You Stink was founded in the first days of the protests, by activists who gained experience in previous protests and other non-sectarian social movements. It was the main pillar of the protests and aimed at a sustainable solution for the garbage crisis. For You Stink, the garbage crisis was a manifestation of the failure of the sectarian system and its clientelist practices. To prevent mistakes from the past, You Stink approached the crisis as a first step that had to be won and tried to stick to the point:

“There were less chants of we want to topple the sectarian regime than in 2011. Like in 2011 that was the hype, it was something that every Arab was shouting over the Arab world so why not taking it on the Lebanese version. But in 2015 I think there was more rationality to what you want to do with the system.”20

We Want Accountability was founded by small leftist parties21 and as such not a spontaneous movement. The movement had a more radical approach and demands. Both You Stink and We Want Accountability wanted to fight the corruption and the system that is entrenched in it but differed on the goals and continuation of the protests. While You Stink aimed for short term measures to solve the crisis, the solution for We Want Accountability was inevitable a political one, linking it too economic and the struggles of the working class. Instead of practical demands, they started immediately with more radical demands like electoral law reform.

“We were saying that any solution for any crisis in Lebanon is political, but not technical. Technical solutions are well known to everyone. The problem was that the regime did not have any word to solve the problem”.22

Both groups acknowledge that they had their differences on their interpretation on how to solve the crisis. However, after initial verbal clashes, the two groups were able to cooperate and rally the people behind their cause. The movements success was linking the garbage crisis to the confessional system and successfully launching the 2011 narrative around secularism. Though the protest movement consisted of

18 Sukleen, the private company that is in charge of garbage collection 19 Shabab 22 Ab (August 22 Youth), Hellou Aanna (Leave us Alone), ash-sha‘ab yurid (the people want) 20 Interview with You Stink activist, conducted on 24/04/2018 21 The Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party, the Socialist Arab Lebanon Vanguard Party (Hizb al Taliyeh Lubnan Al-‘Arabi Al-Ishtiraki), the People’s Movement (Harakat Al-Sha’ab), and The Democratic Youth Union (Ittihad ash-shahab al- dimuqrati) 22 Interview with Hani Fayed from We Want Accountability, conducted on 24/04/2018

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various groups with ideological differences,23they succeeded in rallying around the common denominator of secularism and able to represent an alternative for the rigid Lebanese sectarianism.

The garbage crisis became a critique of the confessional system and its socio-economic consequences. The initial demands had a strong link with the trash issue. They wanted a sustainable solution to the trash problem, the resignation of both the minister of environment and interior and prosecution of inflictors of violence against protestors. Activist could successfully link the garbage crises to the governmental corruption, low-level public services and ineffective governance. Beside a symbol of state capacities, garbage collection is also an ecological issue. As such, the lack of public space and accessible parcs in Beirut became also part of the protestors’ agenda.

Gradually, the demands shifted towards drastic reform demands to change the electoral law and run the parliamentary elections. This was a contentious move. Though the parliament had already extended its mandate twice, some activists feared that new elections would just result in the same composition of parliament (Abu-Rish, 2015).

4.1.3. Factors

As previously mentioned, Lebanon is a different case in the Arab world. While protestors in Egypt or Tunisia could focus on the president and his entourage, the Lebanese state doesn’t have such a strongman. Activist acknowledge that replacing the individuals in charge of state institutions would not change the main political problem, which is a result of the confessional system allocating governmental positions. Popular expressions like the “tyranny of the 18”24 are often heard by activists to symbolize the democratic façade of the confessional system (Kassir, 2015).

As noted by Fakhoury (2014) Lebanon doesn’t have a strong history of collective action due to the sectarian cleavages. Both Fakhoury and Hermez (2011) emphasize these cleavages because of the political system of confessionalism, rather than the multicultural nature of Lebanon. Those cleavages prevented mass mobilization in 2011 but didn’t during the garbage crisis.

23 radical leftist movements, civil movements, and socialist and/or nationalist movements (Abiyaghi et al., 2017, p. 79). 24 Lebanon has 18 recognised confessional communities.

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The factors for the failure of the 2011 protests, the absence of a unified frame, loose structure and internal weakness of different groups are different in 2015 (Fakhoury 2014, Kraidy 2015, Monterescu & Ali 2016). While not all groups were that coherent, they successfully stood as a block in the initial phase of the protests. Fakhoury explains the difference between the 2011 protests and the garbage crisis through the grievances that had been building up in the Lebanese society. The first grievance she notes is the nature of the confessional system in Lebanon, which is based on elite cooperation and integration. As such, the ruling class benefits from this agreement by maintaining their dominant economic position and sustaining the patron-client relations. While the praxis of confessionalism didn’t change in the period between 2011 and 2015, the political reality did. The political deadlock between the two blocks led to the deterioration of public services and low economic development. Combined with Fakhoury’s third factor, the decaying status of democracy in Lebanon, symbolized by the extensions of the parliamentary mandate, the 2015 summer had more opportunities for protest movement to mobilize people (Fakhoury, 2015, p.353).

Combined with these factors, the garbage crisis was a trigger for political contestation by civil society actors who quickly linked governmental corruption and mismanagement to the current state of the Lebanese system. The crackdown of protestors on the 22nd of August led to rising sympathy and more people taking the street. The repressive action of the Lebanese state towards a non-sectarian collective showed that the establishment felt threatened. After all, the protest was a first major and significant opposition movement towards the confessional system.

After the main protests of August, the movement stopped to attract people on the street. The state repression and negative media campaigns about leading activists had their repercussions, while Abu-Rish (2015) notes that activists failed maintain their unified message. The protest movement had massive public support but failed to keep them.

Though protestors were from a cross-confessional background, it is important to look at the initiators and people behind the protest movements. Important is that most of the activists gained experience in previous protests or political organisations. According to Abiyaghi et al, they resemble their predecessors from previous decades, high-educated, mostly men, from Christian or Shia background with a middle-class background, but the 2015 activist should be younger and have less economic capital than social capital and are used to work with telecommunication and social media (Herzog, 2016; Abiyaghi et al, 2017, p.77).

In her 2016 research report, Kerbage has a more critical approach towards the #You Stink movement. Acknowledging the mobilization and the encompassing of different sectarian groups, she notes how

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recruitment went for the majority through sectarian channels. People get mobilized for protests through their social networks, which in Lebanon intersect between family, neighbourhood, religion and sectarian affiliation. In testimonies, participants in her research got motivated for the protests after noticing “people like them” in the rallies, emphasizing the common background from their ‘group’ (Kerbage, 2016, p.26).

Beside the inescapable nature of sectarian mobilization in Lebanon, Kerbage (2016) notes the distinction between volunteers and members of the committees. Inside #You Stink there was a difference between the inner circle and other volunteers. Another disparity is the financial status. Protestors with a high income who live in a safe, diverse neighbourhood risk less than those who are dependent on a sectarian party and the services that they provide. They face more external pressure from family to abstain from participating in the protests, jeopardizing their jobs, education and personal safety if they join the movement.

The peak of the protests was in the week of 22nd August, after the repressive crackdown of the authorities but didn’t last longer than a week. The different groups failed to stay unified and stopped coordinating their activities with each other. Under street pressure, the political elite closed its ranks. The national dialogue assembled again, which is a non-official institution of the political parties present in parliament. Civil society is a criticaster of those institutions, because they take place a behind closed doors and are based on non- official elite-agreements. For non-sectarian civil society, those institutions are the source for the ever- lasting political crisis and corruption:

“Lebanon’s consociational institutions are critiqued for creating dysfunctional political institutions; forentrenching antagonistic ethnic divisions; and for encouraging corruption and clientelism (Leenders 2012).” (Nagle, 2017, p.2).

4.1.4. Challenges and result

You Stink and other movements succeeded in mobilizing an enormous amount of people on a non-sectarian base. Due to the absence of internal cohesion and pressure from the Lebanese regime, the protests failed to continue on a massive scale after August. This section will look on those internal and external pressures and what the eventual result of the protests were.

The You Stink movement and its leaders had to face a smear campaign in the media, depicting them as blasphemous or spies. By erecting physical barriers, using water cannons and teargas, the state repression

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became clear. A founding member of You Stink explained the traditional tactic to undermine groups that challenge the status quo:

“First they ignore you, when that doesn’t work, they try to assimilate you and if that failed, they start fighting you.”25

A subtler approach to challenge the protestors is co-opting their discourse, which is a general phenomenon seen in social movements worldwide. Co-opting civil society is a tactic to make their demands less radical. This tactic had been already used successfully in environmental Lebanese NGO’s, described by Nagel & Staeheli (2015). Sectarian leaders try to gain access in organizations by placing loyalists there to sideline more independent groups. Bassel & Salloukh (2015) describe the elite tactics to undermine civil society organizations with case studies on the syndicalist movement and alternative NGO’s.26 Through their control on state institutions, media companies or co-opting members for their own party, sectarian leaders exert pressure on NGO’s.

These external pressures made the protests weaker, but the ever-present sectarian nature of the Lebanese system had also its repercussions on the non-sectarian movement. Labelling this “the sectarian ghost”, Abiyaghi et al. (2017) describe how mainstream political sectarian tensions also manifested in the protest movement. While the You Stink and We Want Accountability succeeded in the initial phase to overcome the rigid March 8/ March 14 split present in Lebanese politics since 2005 and gather people from both sides, later symbolic discussions27 brought this issue back.

After some of these inconsistencies became public and activist openly displayed different opinions, mainstream media could easily portray the protests as divided. The different movements didn’t act alongside anymore, and activists started separate actions. As such, internal differences and external pressure made an end to the massive mobilization. Protest stayed one for one more month but on a lower scale. The massive crackdown on 8th October wasn’t met with huge critics and ended the protests.

The non-sectarian movement faced similar challenges as previous protests. Indeed, they failed to stay coherent and fell apart after external pressure, but the garbage protests marked a significant change from

25 Interview conducted on 24/04 26 Alternative Ngo’s seek to change Lebanon’s political system and, more specifically, its sectarian nature. (Bassel & Salloukh, 2015, p.740). 27 A recurring issue is the portraying of sectarian leaders in the protests. Hassan Nasrallah, secretary-general of Hezbollah his image was also raised under the slogan ‘All means all’, but this was contested by some movements part of the protest. Nasrallah was excluded from the protest, which was interpreted by some that leftist movements leaned more towards March 8 and showed reluctance for criticising the whole system (Abiyoughi et al., 2017, p. 82).

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the past as it showed the potential for rallying behind a non-sectarian cause. Though acknowledging the factors that caused the protests to fade, most authors emphasize the positive impact of the movement on developing an alternative for the sectarian politics.

With focusing on the garbage in the first stage, You Stink could successfully gather attention and link this issue to the situation of the Lebanese system in general. Confessionalism doesn’t provide incentives for non-sectarian mobilization, so the sudden appeal showed a wider discontentment with the regime. Kraidy notes how You Stink successfully linked the trash issue to the absent notion of citizenship in Lebanon. Through ‘owning’ the garbage crisis, You Stink could link this single-issue to the wider malfunctioning of the state and the high corruption level (Kraidy, 2016, p.22). The cross-sectarian alliances that were made showed that the Lebanese could rally together in public space, while the protest period established new social circles for further political projects. The secular narrative that had been launched after the 2011 protests could now be presented to a wider public.

By dominating the debate, You Stink could point the finger towards the sectarian leaders, instead of the mainstream political tactic to point to other sectarian groups. As such, the garbage protests shattered the image of the almighty confessional leader and his “god-like stature” and crafted real opposition towards the system (Nagle, 2017, p.16). Though Abiyaghi et al. took a more critical view towards the garbage protest through the ‘sectarian ghost’ perspective, they acknowledge that the sectarian challenges did not hinder the movement to challenge the system and the regime (Abiyaghi et al., 2017, p.88). You Stink was a first successful movement for imaging Lebanese politics differently together with other groups, under a common banner of secularism, and shifted attention from sectarian politics towards the state its governmental services and lack of proper citizenship (Fakhoury, 2015, p.354).

The garbage crisis exposed the discontentment of a broad section of Lebanese with the political establishment and the system they represent. A segment of the population didn’t feel adequately represented by politicians governing in a system that lacks any accountability for their acts. The garbage crisis exposed those grievances but did not result in concrete victories. While You Stink and other movements successfully put the problem on the table and could present their narratives, they succumbed under internal differences and state pressure. Though they brought a shock in the system, the street protests had not resulted in positive change. Without a sustainable solution for garbage collection, the garbage crisis lasted on, while the urban protest movement faded (Sharp, 2016). A segment of the activists believed that the time had come for a new strategy: contesting the system from within.

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4.2. Beirut Madinati

4.2.1. Founding and campaign

Although lacking concrete results, the garbage protest was a pivotal episode for further non-sectarian actions. A part of the activists aimed to implement changes from within the system, through the municipal elections. The political action parallel to the system had failed to put sufficient pressure on politicians. Out of the social networks established during the garbage protests, activists founded the Beirut Madinati movement (Arabic for ‘My City Beirut’). The movement remained firmly anti-establishment but tried to implement change from within the system

The merits of participating in municipal elections was not shared by all activists. Lebanese municipal politics had historically been an agreement of local families and sectarian leaders to divide political and economic influence. After the civil war, politicians used the process to cement their dominant position on their local confessional group, but it also became a first battleground for civil society groups. A grassroot campaign in 1998 pressured the regime to let the municipal elections take place for the first time since 1963,28 but the election process has never drawn huge participatory rates (Abu-Rish, 2016).

Beirut Madinati build further on the momentum that was created in the summer of 2015. This local, non- sectarian party restrained from a confrontational tone and focused on its ten-point program to improve Beirut. Their campaign gave them a professional and even corporate, technocratic image instead of a protest party. As such, they were able to channel the anger and grassroots protests into a political level and a party in which people from Beirut could lay hope (Sharp, 2016).

The people behind Beirut Madinati were active in the Garbage crises and cooperated with civil society actors for their electoral campaign. By launching the platform before the announcing of the candidates, Beirut Madinati introduced an alternative way of campaigning. Lebanon has a tradition of personality- centred campaigns that sideline or even ignore a coherent political programme. With a programme that focused on urban problems and local issues, the movement could transcend from a protest movement to a party with a vision for the city. By abstaining from a narrow focus on the elite corruption and decade-long

28 “The Rally for the municipal elections” (Abu-Rish, 2016).

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urban mismanagement, Beirut Madinati avoided a negative campaign in which it would have been hard to surpass the street support that had already been secured. The ten-point programme was not a utopian one but based on community-based research and expertise knowledge. It was a project for the city that could attract numerous discontent people (Sharp, 2016; Kassir, 2016).

To present a diverse list with different profiles, the 24 candidates stemmed from different social backgrounds and professions. Beirut Madinati was the first gender-equal list in Lebanon, while religious background was also taken in consideration but with a secondary priority, noted by Kassir (2016). The list was plural on a confessional level but refrained from any sectarian connotation in campaigning to make the non-sectarian principles of the party clear (Kassir, 2016). Though ranging from street protests, Beirut Madinati cannot be placed in a leftist political perspective like other, European, anti-establishment movement at that time.29 Its flexible and technocratic approach did not include radical calls to remove the regime but brought together different perspectives on how to improve life in Beirut.

Beirut Madinati faced numerous obstacles in its campaign. Founded in autumn, it had to develop a network of volunteers and campaign in less than a year while facing physical limitations to where it could campaign.30 Beside difficulties in campaigning, civil society questioned whether the elections would ultimately take place with a parliament had already extended its mandate twice. Atallah (2016a) describes the two courses of action political parties could take. He concludes that holding the elections is a lower cost for the establishment than postponing them. With a minimal risk, the establishment can keep up an image of legitimacy through allying against the alternative movements and contain them at the same time.

Aware of the mobilization possibilities that the non-sectarian movement had during the garbage crisis, the political class of Beirut closed its ranks and formed a joint list. Put under pressure, the Lebanese political class had united again, properly seen in the ‘Beiruti’s’ list, consisting of almost all major sectarian parties (Abu-Rish, 2016).31

29 Indignados, Podemos, Syriza 30 According to Sharp (2016), Beirut Madinati was not allowed to hold rallies for example in Beirut’s Mazraa district. 31 The Beiruti list consisted of The , the , the Free Patriotic Movement, the Lebanese Forces, Kataeb and the Progressive Socialist Party. Of the major parties, only Hezbollah was missing, stating that it wanted to focus on other municipalities (Groismann, 2016).

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4.2.2. Results and significance

Although the traditional parties assembled together to confront this challenging party, Beirut Madinati was a fierce contender and able to get 40% of the votes. The majoritarian system withheld the movement from any seats, but this result was a political victory. The turnout was low, less than 10%. This due to political apathy and the non-competitive tradition of municipal elections. Another factor is that Lebanese have to vote and run for office through their village of origin, not their place of residence.32 This leads to situations such as in Beirut, where of the almost two million residents less than half a million is allowed to cast their vote (Kassir, 2016).

The 2016 turnout did not differ too much from the 2010 one, which made Atallah (2016b) give two possible interpretations of the elections result: either Beirut Madinati had attracted votes from discontented party supporters, or they mobilized people who had stayed at home in 2010. The Beiruti list inclusion of all major parties led to protests from a part of Christian Free Patriotic members, who had been discontent with the party leadership for a longer time,33 which made them cast their vote to Beirut Madinati (Abu-Rish, 2016). According to former candidate Yorgui Teyrouz, Beirut Madinati attracted votes as well from the other main Christian parties, the Lebanese Forces and Kataeb.34 The attraction of coherent platform put pressure on ruling parties to present a program as well, which made the Beiruti list to co-opt issues raised by Beirut Madinati’s in their campaign.

While most authors emphasize the coherence and the fresh image, Atallah (2016b) includes the internal strengths of the movement as a decisive factor, their ‘ability to face the devil within’. From the founding, Beirut Madinati set up a strong and cohesive party structure to resolve internal conflicts. Civil society movements typically collapse due to different vision, strategies of conflicting ego’s. The party structure consists of three bodies, of which one is aimed to include the volunteers.35

32 The village of origin is traced back to the father for men and unmarried women and transfers the village for married woman to that of the husband (Abu-Rish, 2016). 33 A significant part of the FPM members could not find itself longer in the direction of the movement since 2015. Aoun had given the party leadership to his son-in-law without any internal consultations or democratic process preceding this move, ignoring the principles on which the party was founded. 34 Personal interview conducted at 18/04/2018. 35Beirut Madinati’s structure consists of three bodies. The General Assembly represents the legislative body and votes on decisions for the movement, the Executive Body is elected every three months and helps carry out decisions that have passed within the General Assembly. The Volunteers Corp then divides volunteers into working groups that submit project, program and policy proposals to the General Assembly (civil society centre, 2016).

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For Karam (2017) Beirut Madinati was significant in two ways. It was able to mobilize the masses and continue the momentum of the garbage crises while simultaneously showing Lebanese and followers beyond that the way to challenge the status-quo is by partaking in the process, rather than complaining (Karam, 2017, pp. 5-6). Able to continue the mobilizing factors of the garbage protest, the movement conducted a professional political campaign focusing on its own programme. The sudden appeal and mobilization factor of the garbage crisis and Beirut Madinati showed a wider discontentment with the political system. Former candidate Yorgui Teyrouz describes it as a historic result.36 Normally, people don’t show interest in municipal elections and abstain from the voting process. Beirut Madinati was able to mobilize people through a campaign without any sectarian reference or clientelist practices. The mere existence of a political programme, that took socio-economic, urban and gender issues into consideration was a new given in the Lebanese political scene and challenged the person-based campaigns. The 2016 campaign transcended the traditional confessional approach of party politics and gave supporters a notion of citizenship by reconnecting citizens to politics. Beirut Madinati’s defeat had “the flavour of victory” (Sharp, 2016).

The 2016 elections were also the stage for anti-establisment movements in other cities,37 while Beirut Madinati was not the only alternative list that had ambitions in the capital. Citizens within a State also presented a list which could also attract voters. This movement, founded by ex-minister Charbel Nahas, is closer to the collective around We Want Accountability, who also had a list prepared. They aimed for a coalition between themselves and Beirut Madinati, You Stink, Citizens within a State and others, but retreated in the end.38

Beirut Madinati’s political victory showed the declining support for the status-quo, reflecting the discontentment of the state of Lebanon’s confessional system and the political parties. Building further on civil society activism that constituted the garbage crisis momentum, the municipal campaign showed the possibilities for non-sectarian mobilization, but there are still many challenges. Abu-Rish (2016) sums up the reforms that would positively affect the turn-out and result of the independent movement, such as replacing the majoritarian system with a proportional one and establishing women’s quota. On the other

36 Personal interview, conducted at 18/04 37 In the eastern town Baalbek, traditionally Hezbollah dominated, the secular Baalbek Madinati list gained a significant share of the vote (Saoud, 2016). The Hariri list in Tripoli, consisting of Sunni billionaires was defeated by the local list of former minister Ashraf Riffi (Abu-Rish, 2016) 38 Interview with Hani Fayad, We Want Accountability member, conducted on 24/04

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hand, the non-sectarian movement publicly displayed its disunity, caused by “long-standing infighting within independent and leftist circles.” (Abu-Rish, 2016).

Though Atallah (2016b) links Beirut Madainati’s internal cohesion to its well-organized organizational structure, Sharp (2016) notes that protest campaigns often fragment after initial success. Founded for contesting the status-quo in the municipal elections, the discussion was raised whether to expand this struggle beyond local politics. Loathan (2017) has more critical remarks, including comments about the elitist aura of Beirut Madinati. The party programme has more resonance with middle-class concerns and failed to gain massive support from working class. Just like in the garbage crisis, it is harder for people who are dependent on patronage networks to dissociate themselves from this clientelist relation. Though they might sympathise or support the cause, the consequences for abandoning their sectarian party are too dire.

4.2.3. Post-electoral discussions

The 40% share of the vote led to a rising confidence boost in non-sectarian circles, but municipal elections and politics have a different dynamic from nationwide elections. As such, the question was raised where Beirut Madinati had to go and which tactic it had to follow. By focusing solely on Beirut with a positive programme, Beirut Madinati was able to keep up the image of a professional party and avoid any splits on controversial national or regional issues. For transcending to a nationwide movement, a position on these issues had to be taken. Beirut Madinati’s candidates consisted of individuals with consistent ideas for the capital but had different views on how to participate in parliamentary elections.

At first, the next parliamentary elections were scheduled for May 2017, just a year after the municipal ones. Beirut Madinati’s success had taken the attention from several regional and international observers, which led to rising pressure to participate. The discussion inside the movement was a combination of electoral strategy and nationwide, contentious issues. The third postponement of the election made the movement abstain from a clear stance, but a position on Beirut Madinati’s future was inevitable.

The secular non-sectarian movement kept its presence on the street by coordinating protests against Lebanon’s controversial new budget. In March 2017, the Lebanese government aimed to pass a new state budget. Political rivalry hade it made impossible to pass a new state budget since 2005. The 2016 deal between Geagea and Aoun ended the political deadlock present since 2014. Aoun became president and

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Saad Hariri led the new government, ambitious for proposing for a new budget. The draft proposal set tax hikes, which led to anger due to the high-level corruption that had not been combatted and the inefficient government functioning. Beirut Madinati and You Stink were among the initiators of the street protest with mixed class and sectarian composition. This showed, according to Democracy Digest (2017), that the movement succeeded in encompassing support beyond its initial base and got rid of the elitist label.

In the elections for the Order of Engineers and Architects a month later, the independent Naqabati list was backed by civil society and Beirut Madinati against party candidates. The victory of the candidate, Jad Tabet was a victory as well for the non-sectarian movement (Preston, 2018). Beirut Madinati kept on pressuring the status-quo through all potential campaigns.

The discussion whether to take Beirut Madinati to a more national level through parliamentary elections collided with the incorporation of national issues in political discussions. Electoral strategy and the political programme became as such intertwined. While civil society was united in the tax protests, the internal divisions during the garbage protests and municipal campaign recurred some months later when parliamentary elections came closer. The main political cleavage in the movement is also found in general Lebanese politics. According to Walid Hussein, this split can be traced back to the protests following Hariri’s assassination in 2005 and the rivalry between the then-formed March 8 and March 14 blocks (Hussein, 2018).

The local context in which Beirut Madinati developed made it possible to rally around a common program and stay coherent, but the post-electoral discussions whether to engage in national politics laid the tactical and opposing political stances bare. Strategical discussions on the movement’s future led to two factions, one that wanted to keep the focus on Beirut and another with national ambitions. Beirut Madinati’s general assembly decided not to participate in the parliamentary elections. The vote was split in half, but strategic decisions are made with a two-thirds majority. The two equal blocs showed differences on the tactical level.

Though the issues that were raised in the 2016 campaign are a result of national policies, the faction that wanted to stay local believed Beirut Madinati should consolidate its achievement and develop further its local entrenchment. For the other faction with national ambitions, the municipal elections were a first step to challenge the sectarian system, and in order to continue this battle the movement should develop further, broaden its platform and participate in the parliamentary elections (Cambanis, 2017). One of the tactical considerations to stay on the local level was that they still had to develop and converge to a clear,

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national vision, according to Ibrahim Mneimneh, head of the electoral list in 2016.39 A main issue was whether to engage and cooperate with groups that have a less clear stance on Hezbollah and its arms. The Hezbollah weapon issue is one of the manifestations of the political split present in Lebanon since 2005.40 When the general assembly voted, none of the groups had a clear majority. Strategical decisions need to be taken with a two-third majority, so Beirut Madinati abstained from the parliamentary elections. However, the movement gave permissions to individual members to run for office and did not rule out that it might endorse or support candidates (Schaeffer, 2017).

4.3. Electoral Law

After the second extension of parliament, elections were supposed to be held in 2017. However, a main discussion in Lebanon for several years had been to change the electoral law. The government that was founded after the presidential settlement of 2016 aimed to pass a new law. Recurring debates in Lebanon to alter the electoral system and voting constituencies had put this on table, beside pressure from civil society that felt deprived by the majoritarian law.

The electoral law, or ‘Bloc Vote System’ in colloquial terms, gives voters the chance to select as many candidates as there are parliamentary seats, which are predetermined along confessional balance, and allows to add candidates from outside the list. However, the small size of the districts and the simple plurality systems ensures the continuation of sectarian parties their dominance. The absence of an official pre-printed ballot allows parties to distribute pre-composed voting papers, with which they can check whether their constituency voted for their predetermined alliances and obstruct emerging non-sectarian movements through these clientelist practices (Salloukh & Verheij, 2017, pp. 163-165).

There is an academic consensus among consociational theorists that proportional systems are the most effective to stabilize divided societies. The more equal representation is more democratic, increases accountability party politics and coalitions while shifting the emphasis to parties instead of individuals

39 Interview conducted on 18/04/2018 40 Hezbollah was the only militia that was allowed to keep its weapons after the Taif agreement, while other powerful militia’s such as the Lebanese Forces had to give them up. Hezbollah achieved this concession by linking it to resistance to Israel’s occupation of South Lebanon. After Israel retreated in 2000, Hezbollah shifted its focus towards the Shebaa farms and the resistance project to remain legitimacy over its arms possession as non-state actor (Bahout, 2012).

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(Salloukh & Verheij, 2017, p.166). The majoritarian system was also a main contestation point for civil society, which tries to exert street pressure on the establishment for implementing a new law. A main demand during the garbage crisis was reforming the electoral law towards a proportional system, which would ensure higher accountability and transparency. Activists see the electoral law as a source of Lebanon’s misery, through which the government eliminates possible competitors (Bergmeijer, 2015).

In the past decade, several electoral law revisions had been proposed by political committees and expert, but the sectarian logic of Lebanese politics results in analyses in which parties calculate possible gains or losses rather than aiming to improve the system. Parties had also proposals, reflecting their interest to gain as much possible parliamentary seats proposals (Salloukh & Verheij, 2017).41

In June 2017, the Lebanese parliament came to accept the long-awaited electoral law. The most significant change is the shift from the majoritarian system to a proportional one and the preferential vote. On a first sight, the proportional system seems a benefit towards smaller, independent parties. Indeed, the majoritarian system kept Beirut Madinati out of the municipal council which contributed to the pressure of civil society on the parliament to accept a proportional law. However, in their analysis of the law and parliamentary process, Atallah & El-Helou (2017) include many criticisms.

The size of the districts remained small. In order to have an effective proportional system, the number of seats needs to be high, at least twenty, but this barely found. Some districts have just five or six seats, making the proportional system almost ineffective while the formula for allocating seats is another point of critic, because it sets the threshold in some districts. A further critic on the districts composition is on constituencies where there are several sectarian seats. Candidates competing directly against each other for a single confessional seat makes the proportional system de facto ineffective.

The other major change, the preferential vote, also gets critical remarks from candidates and researchers. Voters are only allowed to cast one preferential vote which causes intra-list competition and brings back the majoritarian system when selecting candidates, who compete for this single vote and spread their resources. Besides complicating list formation, it plays the candidates against each other. While the proportional system gives smaller parties a chance, the preferential vote safeguards the dominant position of the establishment. Civil society movements don’t have spearhead candidates that attract a huge number

41 As such, there have been the Boutros law, the Orthodox law, the Amal proposal, the PSP proposal and the combined proposal of the LF and Future movement. For more explanation: Salloukh & Verheij, 2017, Transforming Power Sharing: From Corporate to Hybrid Consociation in Postwar Lebanon.

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of votes just by their name. This makes the Lebanese political system highly personalized, voters are more interested in the person than in the political party.

In an interview, Ali Sleen, researcher at the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE) described the law as hidden majoritarian and no real game changer. The demand was for big electoral districts to have an effective proportional system in some districts, but the small size of some constituencies makes it a hidden majoritarian system: “Because the more you go smaller for an electoral system, the more the proportional system will be close to the majoritarian system, rather than the proportional system.”42

Both LADE and LCPS emphasize elements in the law that gives parties instruments for influencing the election result. The law also doesn’t differentiate between services and bribing. Associations that are linked to a politician or party that had been running for a constant period of three years can continue their provisions. The law states clearly that this can be tuition fee or providing money, which is close to bribery according to international standards and LADE. The money aspect is a major obstacle for civil society movements. Candidates have to pay a 5000$ fee for running in the election, which an independent candidate for the 2018 elections sees as a restriction of her democratic right: “After all, this is your right as citizen to run, and you shouldn’t be paying for your right.”43 Beside the fee, the law also heightened the ceiling for expenditures to 100,000$ on campaigning, which make it an expensive business in Lebanon, where TV-channels ask amounts up to 100,000$ from candidates to join talk shows.

The law also changed the electoral districts. This gerrymandering process has a long tradition in Lebanon. Parties redraw district to change the sectarian composition so that they have a more favourable vote. It was a popular tactic by Syria after the civil war to ensure that its allies got re-elected in parliament and to contain Christian parties opposed to the occupation. For the new law, districts in the eastern Beqaa valley were for example changed in a way that two major politicians would get their seat without having to compete against each other. In the end, the Lebanese consensus system requires cooperation between all major parties. If one of them would have perceived the new law as a threat, it would not have passed the parliament.

42 Interview with Ali Sleen, conducted on 19/04/2018 43 Interview with Laury Haytayan, conducted on 23/04/2018

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5. Analysis of the 2018 Campaign

An analysis of the 2018 campaign of the civil society and non-sectarian movement is the last part of this dissertation. I witnessed this process from close-by and attended several meetings and rallies of movements based in Beirut. Combined with interviews with candidates and researcher, I tried to gain different insights on the strategies and gradual emergence of the movement. This section is based on my research paper for Heinrich Böll Stichtung Middle East, combined with the factors that led to the successful Beirut Madinati campaign and mass mobilization in the garbage crisis.

5.1. List formation process

After the electoral law got adopted and the parliamentary elections were scheduled to take place in 2018, several non-sectarian civil society movements aimed to form electoral lists. After the garbage protest and the Beirut Madinati campaign, the benefits of the non-establishment label became clear. Politicians are eager to label themselves as independent or part of civil society when they are not given a place on a list of the traditional parties. Therefore, this part does not include lists that had parties present in parliament, even though they had candidates with roots in the garbage protests. As such we have the Kataeb – ecology movement44 list in Baabda, or former Beirut Madinati candidates on lists in Beirut II with traditional parties or businessmen close to the establishment.

The candidate and list deadlines caused plenty candidates to retreat. Out of the 917 candidates that registered, 320 withdrew because they were not able to join a list. A lot of these victims were civil society candidates and women. Out of 597 candidates running, 86 are women, a significant rise compared to 2009

The list formation process led to two different strategies, reflecting the tactical split in Beirut Madinati. Ambitious movements aimed for a nationwide coalition gathering the non-sectarian forces in Lebanon

44 The ecology movement was an important factor in the garbage crisis and ran with Kataeb in Baabda. Kataeb has historically been a powerful Christian party, dominated by the Gemayel family, and controversial because of their acts in the civil war. After the war, the party became less relevant when its political position got taken over by the Lebanese Forces. Their discourse shifted in 2016 to a more anti-establishment one to attract new voters.

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under one umbrella. An other part interpreted this tactic as a top-down approach and opted for local lists and abstain from any coalition beyond the electoral districts to strengthen local presence.

5.1.1. Kollouna Watani

After the new electoral law was adopted, independent non-sectarian political formations aimed to participate in the upcoming elections. Beside nationwide ambitions of some groups, the provisions that candidates should form lists and the high financial cost were other incentives to form a nationwide non- sectarian coalition, Tahaluf Watani. In order to make the coalition possible, movements had to be incorporated under the same umbrella with different views on the critical issues. According to Hussein (2018),45 these issues are Hezbollah’s arms, Syrian refugees, and the state’s authority, while Ghaddar (2018) adds the coalition’s inconsistent view of a secular state, emphasizing that it is a coalition rather than an alliance. The main contentious point was Hezbollah’s arms and the debate became stronger when other, more well-known groups joined. When We Want Accountability and Sah joined, two groups that “equivocate” towards the possession of arms by Hezbollah, other groups refused to be in a coalition with them (Ghaddar, 2018). Sah is a movement of FPM-dissidents, centred around Ziad Abs, the person behind the 2006 memorandum of understanding between FPM and Hezbollah.46

To overcome the differences, the coalition abstained from taking a position and added an ambiguous paragraph that refrained from taking a strong stance on this issue, in which the coalition states to “respect the sovereignty of the state’s territory through a comprehensive political, social, economic, and defense strategy, and through the development of the capabilities of the army and its institutions.” (Ghaddar, 2018). These statements are accepted by all Lebanese parties, including Hezbollah, because it publicly supports the army and claims to defend the Lebanese territory. Kollouna Watani supporters tried to go beyond the Hezbollah issue to forge a strong coalition, but others interpret this position as a lack of a clear and coherent political vision. While allowing for different policy views, the coalition had strict ethical guidelines for groups that aimed to join the coalition. These conditions ranged from not being member of a traditional party or

45 Personal interview conducted at 12/04/2018 46 The memorandum of understanding, signed between delegates from FPM and Hezbollah, made the two parties close allies and put the FPM in the March 8 bloc. This memorandum lasts till today.

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having affiliation with a regional country to endorsing woman and human rights. Groups that fitted the criteria were allowed in the framework.

Not all coalition members were contentious because of their policy views, one was contentious as party itself. Sabaa party was founded with clear, national ambition and not as result from year-long street protests and grassroot actions for political change. The founder Jad Dagher, an ex-Kataeb member, has some controversies from the past47 while the party’s financial resources exceed that of all the other movements combined, which has raised concerns. Sabaa could attract well-known media figures such as Paula Yacoubian, which gave them, combined with their resources, the image of an elite movement close to the establishment in the eyes of activist who had been struggling for years (Ghaddar, 2018).

For this list formation, Tahaluf Watani set up an electoral coalition together with the Citizens within a State movement of Charbel Nahas. They took the name Kollouna Watani, which is Arabic for ‘We are all patriots.’ Kollouna Watani was able to submit lists in 9 out of 15 electoral districts in Lebanon with 66 candidates. The districts where civil society had the most chance for entering parliament where and Chouf-Aley, due to their low threshold. Beirut I encompasses only Christian neighbourhoods. There was a clear distinction between the Kollouna Watani list and the other four of the establishment or rich businessmen.

The backbone of Kollouna Watani’s list in Beirut I is the Libaladi movement (‘For my country’). Libaladi is a political movement founded by the faction of Beirut Madinati with national ambitions, a position that they don’t hide. Most candidates stem from the broader social network around Beirut Madinati. 48Their faction respected the democratic decision of the general assembly to not join the parliamentary elections but decided to establish another movement, to continue on the momentum of the garbage crisis. Libaladi had initial reluctance to join Tahaluf Watani. As a well-developed movement with a strong programme and presence on the ground, they saw benefits in the local, bottom-up strategy, but opted for the nationwide coalition. Candidate Laury Haytayan explains the process that led to this decision:

“We decided that we should run all together as one because there are lot of common points between us. There are differences between us as groups, this is normal, in Kollouna Watani it is impossible to agree on everything but at least we were able to come up with a common ground.”49

47 Dagher his company DK was blacklisted by the U.S. government for allegedly shipping Syrian banknotes from Russia to the Syrian central bank (Rahbani, 2014). 48 Three out of seven initial candidates were candidates in 2016: Yorgui Teyrouz, Levon Telvezian and Tarek Ammar, while two others were behind the political programme of Beirut Madinati: Gilbert Doumit and Nayla Geagea. 49 Personal interview conducted 23/04/2018

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5.1.2. Bottom-up strategy

Kollouna Watani faced heavy criticisms from activists affiliated with other groups with whom they had cooperated in the garbage crisis and Beirut Madinati but were affiliated with other groups in the 2018 campaign. Labelling their strategy as top-down, they refused to join and insisted on staying local and a grassroot, bottom-up approach. This split was manifested in Beirut II and Chouf-Aley district.

Kelna Beirut had the reversed electoral strategy from Kollouna Watani. This movement was founded between different activist to form a civil society list in Beirut II district. Some of the candidates had been candidates for Beirut Madinati50 and a lot of the volunteers were there too in 2016, but Kelna Beirut never had to aim to represent Beirut Madinati. They refused to join the civil society coalition and decided to stay local. One the one hand because they had a different electoral strategy and on the other due to some groups in Kollouna Watani without a clear position on Hezbollah’s weapon, a red line for them. The campaign manager, Karim Mufti, sees the Kelna Beirut electoral strategy as a bottom-up one while Kollouna Watani has a top-down approach.51 They insisted on forming lists on a regional level, where there is a strong presence on the ground and then, in a next phase, establish possible linkages between lists. A main critique of the Kollouna Watani approach is that they started lists in districts where there isn’t any local presence.

By abstaining from the coalition and therefore any consequence, Kelna Beirut was able to take a clear stance on critical issues that divide the country political. In an interview, Ibrahim Mneimneh, Kelna Beirut member, shared his view on the electoral strategy of Kollouna Watani:

“In order for them to make this alliance work, they had to tone down their positions and go for some grey areas regarding political positions. When you bring to many together they elude the differences.”52

These grey areas are of course the issue of Hezbollah and its weapons. Kelna Beirut was open for independents to join but then they had to end their relationship with their former party. Beirut II was one of the most competitive districts for the elections with nine electoral lists. There had been talks between individuals close to Libaladi to join the Kelna Beirut list, but this didn’t succeed because of different views. Beirut II is a heavily contested district with Hariri as candidate and a Sunni bastion, which led anti-

50 Ibrahim Mneimneh and Marwan At-Tibi 51 Interview conducted at 29/03/2018 52 Interview conducted at 18/04/2018

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establishment candidates disagree for electoral purposes to which level they should be non-sectarian, a point on which Libaladi affiliated persons could not give in (Ghaddar, 2018).

Chouf-Aley district also saw two competing civil society lists, one of Kollouna Watani and one independent list, “Madaniya”, headed by Mark Daou. The principlist stance taken in public by candidates as reason to abstain from a given coalition had often more ego-related and electoral reasons. Beside rejection the electoral strategy, the membership of Sabaa was contentious for some long-time activists. The sudden rise and unclear financial resources gave birth to numerous rumours and theories about the party.53 With these competing lists and different approaches, the non-sectarian movement got easily framed as divided in mainstream media. This contributed to the negative image that the civil society had in this campaign.

5.2. Campaign

During the 2018 campaign, the impact of the garbage crisis and Beirut Madinati became clear, though on a more structural level. For the first time, traditional parties came up with coherent party programmes instead of the mere personal campaigns of the past, though they still stuck to those. Since the presidential settlement between Aoun and Geagea, the political debate was shifted from the issues that divided the country since 2005 towards a socio-economic agenda. The cleavages are not gone, but the focus went to issues like sustainable development.

Just like the Beirut Madinati programme, issues that had been raised by civil society activists for years became incorporated in mainstream political speech and co-opted in their programmes. Beside development and infrastructure, corruption is a clear example. Ignored or socially accepted in the first decades after the Taif agreement, it was through street protests that this practice became contested. Parties included combatting corruption in their programmes. Though it became a main theme for mainstream parties, who blame it on individuals, non-sectarian movements have a different interpretation about the high-level Lebanese corruption. For them, it is an inherent part and consequence of the confessional system.

53 Rumours were going around about the origin of the party’s wealth, with their funds coming from either Iran, Russia or the US embassy, dependent on who the person I was talking with.

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An important difference with the 2016 Beirut Madinati campaign is that the elections are about the parliamentary seats. There is a fundamental difference between the local and parliamentary elections, because communal leaders have their interests in political system to maintain the clientelist relations. There is more at stake than in 2016, while the different non-sectarian groups were not able to regain the positive image of Beirut Madinati. Parties don’t feel threatened when they don’t have representation in the municipal council. However, parliamentary seats are essential for all political parties for legitimation and maintaining their position.

5.2.1. Rallying

The dominant position of the sectarian parties could be clearly witnessed on the street and media coverage. Media companies all have political to different parties in factions in the country. This heavily influences the news coverage and standards and makes them mouthpieces for the parties.54 The state television, Téléliban covered civil society events55 but is barely watched, while the private-owned companies ask enormous prices up too 100,000$ for air-time. Civil society lists didn’t have the funds or refused for ethical reasons to pay for coverage.

As alternative, they relied on social media because it was hard for them to get covered by television, which was their main platform. Through campaign videos highlighting corruption or consequences of bad governance, they try to spread their message. Next to social media the lists rely on street and door-to-door campaigning. All candidates note that the reactions on street campaigning are positive, but it takes them a lot of time. As new faces in the political scene, they face more scepticism while they don’t have the same resources to have such a dominant street-presence. Mainstream parties don’t have to defend themselves that much, it is about them being in power. The political banners and billboards that are everywhere in the public space gives a message to the voters about who is in charge.

A clear distinction between the civil society lists and mainstream parties is their way of campaigning and the incorporation of symbolic battlegrounds in their gatherings. The absence of public space in Beirut and

54 LBC and MTV are close to the Lebanese Forces, Future TV is owned by current PM Saad Hariri. In the pro-Iranian sphere, there is Al-mayadin and al-manar which are Hezbollah mouthpieces, NBN for Amal and Orange TV for the FPM (Trombetta, 2018). 55 Téléliban covered the national launch of the Kollouna Watani list on 9/04.

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the worsening environmental issues, civil society battlegrounds have a clear impact on the movements. Libaladi held an “ahadee”, a weekly talk, on the Hekmeh bridge, part of the never finished Fouad Boustros highway that would have destroyed the historical neighbourhoods Geitawi and Mar Mikhael.56 By reclaiming absent public spaces in Beirut, civil society put further attention to governmental lack of decent, long-term urban planning.

Kollouna Watani chose as well to hold events at symbolic places. For the launch of the Beirut I list a parking lot next to Beit Beirut was chosen. This building, located on the green line that divided Beirut during the civil war57 had been a battleground for civil society in the 1990s, after initial plans for demolition. After campaigning, activists forced the municipality to seize the building and transform into a ‘museum of memory to the city’ (Nagle, 2016, p.13).

The 2015 garbage crisis was a catalyst for the current movement and environmentalism became a main pillar for the different groups. Madaniya held for example a press conference at a trash dump, to put attention on the failing policy that endangers health, while the Kollouna Watani Metn list was launched at the Bourj Hammoud landfill. The candidates stood with their backs towards the former dump, a symbolic message towards the ruling parties who have been ignoring the garbage issue for years. Commenting on the current real estate project on the landfill, the campaign manager present stated that “they are putting a layer of sand on the trash from the past.”58

5.2.2. Programme

By participating in national elections, movements that stemmed from local grievances and initiatives had to present a program that went beyond their initial demands. While diverging on tactics, all non-sectarian movement rally on the common ground to establish a civil state. The programme of the civil society reflects the new political discourse that has been present since the Garbage crisis and Beirut Madinati. For civil society, the main goal is to have a secular state that threat the Lebanese equal and provide basic needs

56 The highway was a proposal launched in the 1964 and relaunched in 2013. Several local organisations contested this idea and proposed to establish a park instead (Issa, 2013). 57 The green line divided predominantly Christian Eastern Beirut from predominantly Muslm Western Beirut during the civil war and was a no-go zone for 15 years. 58 Personal talk at 4/04.

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regardless of religion. They aim to overcome the current clientelist culture and to establish the notion of citizenship.

The rising awareness around corruption led mainstream parties to incorporate this issue in their program. To distinguish themselves from the establishment, civil society campaigns emphasized the political past of the traditional parties and points to their hypocrisy. For example, Hariri’s Future Movement has been in government since the Taif agreement and contributed to the normalization of corruption, but now tries to take a stance against the practice. The non-sectarian movement also has a different interpretation of the corruption issue and sees it as inherently linked to the political system, as “a result of sectarianism, clientelism and nepotism and entrenched in the culture of public services.”59 Civil society candidates see themselves as a vanguard of a new political culture. LCPS studies show the unproductivity and ignorance of the current MP’s once they have their seat.60 Instead of using the parliamentary control tools to hold the government accountable, they provide services to their constituency, what should be the task of state institutions. Libaladi candidates, like Haytayan, aim “to bring back the notion of being a parliamentarian and build a capable state instead of the current sectarian one and aim to redefine politics.”61

Another issue is the judiciary and parliamentary control. A recurring civil society demand is the simple request for following and implementing the constitution. The conflict of interest between the judiciary and executive branch holds back any parliamentary control. When members of parliament are appointed as minister they keep their seat in parliament. Next to weakening parliamentary control, ministers appoint judges as well. This creates a strong link and dependant relationship between the different branches of government and obstructs independent judiciary control.

While the stances on a secular state controlled by laws are common, there are more differences on the policy that this state should implement. The Kollouna Watani list includes leftist movements and others who propose further privatization. Movements differ more on public-private partnerships, but there is a consensus on taxation plans, to shift from indirect to direct taxation and let the banking and service sector bear a larger burden. Their fundamental opposition towards the current policy of the ruling parties overcomes these differences and due to the clear anti-establishment stance, these differences can be described as minor in the current state of the movement.

59 Interview with Ibrahim Mneimneh, conducted at 18/04/2018 60 Atallah & Diab, 2018a; Atallah & Diab, 2018b. 61 Interview conducted with Yorgui Teyrouz (18/04/2018) and Laury Haytayan (23/04/2018).

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A more divisive factor is Hezbollah and its arms. Some movements and individuals in Kollouna Watani have less problems with Hezbollah’s arms, which was, beside a different electoral strategy, a reason for Kelna Beirut from abstaining. All movements support a reinforcement of the current army to make a dialogue possible to incorporate Hezbollah and its militias but differ on the possibilities to implement this. There are thus a lot of common points, but the issues that split Lebanon politically since 2005 can also be witnessed in the movement. Walid Hussein sees this division as a disadvantage and contributing to the bad reputation civil society had in this campaign.62

Though those differences exist, they are not a fundamental challenge. Kollouna Watani is an electoral coalition in the end, not a political one. While the splits are easily framed as main ideological differences, candidates see it as an attempt by mainstream parties and media that tries to make a systemic split in the movement. In the end, differences emerge when you evolve as from protest on the street about a specific issue to a political movement with an encompassing view. Beside minimizing the impact of the differences, it is also an indication of maturity and a developing process to have debates on programme. Ibrahim Mneimneh sees it like this:

“If civil society want to become a political society, they will have differences. I wouldn’t see it at as divided. It is very natural. Civil society are groups working outside establishment on specific topics, this doesn’t cover all aspect of politics. Ofcourse it is not homogenous. I don’t understand why it is always portrayed as divided.”63

5.2.3. Challenges

Beside the all the money that is put in the electoral campaign due to the high ceiling for electoral expenses, civil society faced more challenges. With limited resources they tried to spread their message, but it is hard to go beyond the support that they already secured. Through observing the different events of movements, I tried to get an image of the voter public. The events of Libaladi are monopolized by youth, a fact that Libaladi candidates acknowledge. While they secured youth support, this is not sufficient for an electoral

62 Personal interview conducted at 12/04/2018 63 Interview conducted at 18/04/2018

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change and convincing traditional party voters is a tough job. To expand their supporters base, civil society aims for those who abstain from voting and have given up on the political system.

The common practice of vote-buying is an example of how the notion of citizenship is currently absent in Lebanon. Officially against the law, this socially-accepted problem cannot be seen separately from the clientelist system and is another aspect of the patronage network and services. The clientelist nature of the system turned a vote from an instrument to hold politicians accountable into a commodity that can be sold, and none of the traditional parties makes attempts to put a hold on this. On the contrary, as Kelna Beirut candidate Fatmeh Hamasni states: “They push people to be poor, to be dependent on them and at the last moment they need the money.”64

According to Haytayan, the problem became worse the past years, with voters actively looking for a politician to sell their vote to with the purpose of making a quick win. By passing this ethical boundary and keeping this practice actively alive, politicians “are destroying everything that is left from the civil responsibility and citizenship.”65

Due to the clientelist nature of Lebanese politics, civil society lists have problems reaching out to people from lower socio-economic strata, although candidates would not admit this. People might favour the idea of civil society groups and have sympathy towards them, but they stick to traditional parties because they are in need of the services that they provide. Successfully launching a discourse and pressuring the traditional parties gave civil society sympathy from the public opinion, but this does not necessarily reflect in votes, as the elections demonstrated.

5.3. Election results

The elections didn’t result in the chance that was hoped for. With a lower voter turnout than in 2009, the apathy among Lebanese on politics remains high. Civil society failed to reach out to those who stay at home, although their vote is the one they are aiming for. They wanted to channel the discontent voter but failed in convincing them. The Kollouna Watani list got a national vote of 2% and failed to go beyond the vote of

64 Personal interview conducted at 20/04/2018 65 Personal interview conducted at 23/04/2018

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their social circle. Paula Yacoubian got in parliament, a candidate with more financial resources than the others, what could be noticed on the street.

Proponents of the local, bottom-up approach interpreted this result as a failure of the Kollouna Watani strategy. People in the alliance with the better results were those that had been active for a long time, while the 17 Sabaa candidates had an average of 283 votes, despite being the party with the most financial resources and nationwide ambitions. 66 Sabaa’s electoral strategy had failed with a total election result of less than 5000 votes, excluding Paula Yacoubian, who got her result due to her own resources and connections. The decision-making process inside the coalition slowed the movements and delayed their campaign. Gilbert Doumit from Libaladi, a leading figure of the Kollouna Watani coalition, acknowledges these failures and internal flaws, but still considers the constituency of 50,000 an achievement, given the financial circumstances and lack of proper media access.67

The official annunciation of the election results was scheduled to take place on election day itself but was delayed for several days. All lists and parties have their own representatives at the voting stations and publish their results as well, before the official ones. Initial results on election day showed two Kollouna Watani seats in Beirut I, for Sabaa candidate Paula Yacoubian and Joumana Haddad from Libaladi. Traditional parties reported this as well, but this result was the day after altered to just one seat. Kollouna Watani representatives had to leave the counting room and after they were let, the voting projections changed out of their favour. This triggered protests the day itself in front of the ministry of interior on May 7th. The crowd quickly grew to some 500 people, who were beside this issue denouncing the electoral violations in general. This protest also faced criticism from inside the movement, who saw it as a step back from a professional political movement towards the previous street protests that had failed to get support beyond the initial social circle.68 In a post-electoral talk with two people69 who had been present at the counting process, they interpreted the events as an example off the general fraudulent practises, but not as systemic obstruction on the non-sectarian movement. The financial barriers of participating are seen more essential than the events around Haddad, though they still hoped for the counting data to be published to make a judicial case.

66 Numbers were given to me by Marwan Maalouf during a personal interview conducted at 16/05/2018 67 Personal interview conducted at 16/05/2018 68 Statement noted at post-electoral discussion event from Kollouna Watani, held at 15/05/2018. 69 Gilbert Doumit and Marwan Maalouf

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The non-sectarian lists were not able to dominate the debate as in 2016, after mainstream media successfully labelled them as incoherent and divided. Party voters stayed loyal, and studies show how important sectarian affiliation remains for a large segment of the voters. Civil society aimed to focus on their programme and abstain from sectarian rhetoric, but this tactic remains fruitful in Lebanon. Clientelist electoral offers remain a common practice in Lebanon. Job opportunities and college fees are a long-term transaction between voter and candidate and needed by the people, who gladly accept this offer.

The political debate in Lebanon had started to include programmes under influence of the Beirut Madinati campaign and the proportional law but remained superficial and centred around personalities. The proportional system gave non-sectarian lists ambitions, but the intra-list rivalry for the preferential vote made candidates focusing solely on their co-confessionalists and led them resort to sectarian rhetoric to mobilize people. Beside these systemic challenges, monitoring of LADE reported 950 violations during the electoral process. Voting secrecy was not respected and ballot boxes went missing (Atallah, 2018).

The civil society can look back upon a campaign in which they developed themselves on a political level. Though facing difficulties for forming the lists, the debate and electoral strategy marks a new point in their struggle. With a well-developed programme, civil society showed its transition from a one-issue movement to a mature political movement. The non-sectarian movement got quickly branded as divided in this campaign, but these differences are not a fundamental challenge. Although movements had their differences on electoral and political issue, they have the non-sectarian citizenship discourse in common. Not all groups joined the national coalition, but representatives from both Kollouna Watani and Kelna Beirut acknowledged that they can learn from each other’s strategy.

The main problem during campaign was the inability to reach out to people outside the network of young, secular activists. This due to the high electoral costs of campaigning in Lebanon, but there is also a large segment of the Lebanese population that will stick to the sectarian party system and the services. Civil society acknowledge this and aims for the silent majority that abstains from voting, but they failed to mobilize them. While they can look back on a unified national campaign, they did not reach enough voters. By evaluating where they excelled and what mistakes have been made, civil society can prepare itself for the upcoming battles that they face.

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6. Conclusion

Transforming the Lebanese sectarian system to a full-fledged, secular state remains fiction. It is not in the interest of any confessional leader or regional ally. The economic base and lifestyle of the Lebanese upper- class is based on the confessional system and the spoils of the clientelist services. The confessional system has been contested by marginalized groups from the beginning, but the composition and ideological goals of these groups has been changed over time. The secular motives of these groups were more influenced by regional allies, ideological stances, and never consisted of all religious communities. The pre-civil war period hade huge socio-economic disparities and political discrimination of the non-Maronite groups. The political disparities changed with Taif, but the economic not. Since the agreement, the Christian communities feel more marginalized, due to electoral districts and the Syrian presence, but no sectarian group contested the nature of the confessional system.

Taif cemented the confessional identities stronger to their political representatives. The Lebanese state had expanded since the independence, with ministries and service institutions founded for the interests of militia leaders. Political connections and obedience towards the confessional politician became necessary for access to the state services. This gatekeeper position of politicians leads to the absence of accountability and political apathy among the Lebanese. The non-sectarian movement that participated in the 2018 elections has its roots in the decade after the Taif agreement. The first opposition towards Hariri’s neoliberal reconstruction of Beirut and the Lebanese state came from the trade unionist. Their interests and motives were purely socio-economic, but their critique is incorporated in the current non-sectarian discourse.

Among university groups, a more political contestation of the system started to develop. These networks had their first mobilization opportunity during the Cedar revolution but could not distance themselves enough from the sectarian parties. The secularism narrative was for a first time launched successfully in the Arab spring period. Activists succeeded in linking the socio-economic grievances with the neoliberal confessional system but failed to spread their message beyond the initial base and mobilize the masses. As such, the garbage crisis was pivotal.

The socio-economic and political grievances of activists opposing the confessional system were the same as in 2011, but the context had changed. The deadlock and clear lack of democratic transparency provided

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an opportunity for the non-sectarian movement to mobilize the masses. The summer protests were crucial for displaying the possibilities of an anti-establishment mass movement, though it was not yet a mature political movement. Beirut Madinati continued on the garbage crisis momentum and was a first step to contest the system from the inside. The fixation on a programme led to a united stance, while with the strong internal structure Beirut Madinati could face the internal challenges that led to the collapse of the garbage protest movement.

The post-electoral discussion inside the movement whether to go on a national level and the disagreements on the Kollouna Watani tactic made a split in the unified image but matured the movement politically. Though it raises the question whether we still can speak about one non-sectarian movement, the different movements developed a coherent programme consisting of national issues in Lebanon. The internal discussion on electoral strategy and political programme raised issues that are otherwise not held. With the split between the ‘bottom-up’ approach and Kollouna Watani, mainstream parties and media could easily frame the movement as divided, just like they did in 2015. The attempts back then to frame the You Stink and We Want Accountability dispute as a new March 14 – March 8 fight were one of the tactic’s of the establishment to contain the protests.

The parliamentary campaign was tougher than the municipal one. Facing more obstacles than in 2016, the civil society campaign was met with more criticism and systemic challenges. The sectarian undertone of the campaign, under influence of regional tensions, did not give that much attention to the civil society movements. No real accusations were made, but they were labelled as non-mature, incapable and could not dominate the debate. Electoral results were a disappointment. Beside Beirut I, Kollouna Watani candidates received weak results. In an analysis, their candidates with good results are those that are local well-entrenched and have been active for many years in grassroot organisations, instead of the Sabaa candidates that benefitted from a cohesive national structure but lacked local entrenchment. While the Kollouna Watani approach had benefits on the organizational and financial aspect, the result played in favour of groups who are well entrenched locally, such as Libaladi in Beirut I and individual candidates in other districts.

Though the campaign didn’t result in concrete result, the movement went through a process the last three years. From street protests movement, a local movement was founded for the municipal elections. Their result showed the possibilities of a non-sectarian political movement. The parliamentary elections made local groups mature politically, through the list formation process and programme formulation. This gradual emergence is a process with symbolic victories but also with flaws.

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Breaking through the confessional system is a tough challenge. Since independence, the sectarian parties stick to their seat to maintain their dominant position. The Taif agreement cemented sectarian identities further, gave legitimacy to former warlords and corruption became almost socially accepted. The emergence of the non-sectarian movement started as a contestation of this system and developed into a mature political movement, though it still fights an uphill battle. This unequal position will not change drastically the coming years. The question now is how the non-sectarian movement will develop in the coming years and which tactic they will apply to attract more voters. The 2022 elections are just around the corner and this campaign was the latest, but not the final step in the development of the political non- sectarian movement in Lebanon.

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7. Attachments

7.1. Map of the Ottoman Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate.

Retrieved from: https://web.stanford.edu/dept/archaeology/journal/newdraft/garnand/figurepage.html

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7.2. Map of Greater Lebanon under the French mandate.

Retrieved from https://web.stanford.edu/dept/archaeology/journal/newdraft/garnand/figurepage.html

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7.3. List of Interviewees

Karim Mufti, campaign manager Kelna Beirut, 29/03

Walid Hussein, journalist, 12/04

Ibrahim Mneimneh, Kelna Beirut candidate Beirut II, 18/04

Yorgui Teyrouz, Libaladi, candidate Beirut I 18/04

Ali Sleen, LADE researcher, 19/04

Fatme Hamasni, Kelna Beirut/ Sabaa, candidate Beirut II 20/04

Laury Haytayan 23/04, Libaladi, candidate Beirut I

Hani Fayad, 24/04, We want accountability

You Stink founder, 24/04

Gilbert Doumit, 16/05/08, Libaladi candidate Beirut I Marwan Maalouf, 16/05/18, You Stink founder

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