The Lebanese political class faces a dilemma: "How to reform the system without committing suicide?"

"Robbers!" "All, that means all!" In Lebanon , the scene of unprecedented popular protest, the main slogans of the protesters demand the departure of the entire political class. "In power for 30 years," she is accused of being corrupt and incompetent. No prominent leader is spared by the anger of the Lebanese, neither President Michel Aoun, nor his son-in-law and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, nor Prime Minister Saad Hariri, nor the Speaker of Parliament and former warlord Nabih Berri.

From north to south, even in some Hezbollah bastions of Hassan Nasrallah, via the capital Beirut, protesters with only the Lebanese flag express their rage at a denominational political system they deem to be failing. But who yet manages to perpetuate itself.

"The popular revolt in Lebanon shows that the denominational system no longer has a place in the country, it is no longer legitimate because it has been unable, for several decades, to respond to the economic crisis of which it is responsible by its nature, nor can it meet the needs of the Lebanese, explains to France 24 Nour Kilzi, researcher in international law at the Sorbonne.The population needs a state, this crisis is an opportunity to to build one without the current political class. "

Dating back to the 1920s, and consolidated in 1943 by the National Pact (an unwritten intercommunity agreement), the political system in Lebanon, which has 18 religious communities, is based on the principle of consensual democracy. It is also based on a confessional distribution of official and administrative functions. The President of the Republic and the head of the army are still Christians - Maronites, precisely - while the Prime Minister is Sunni and the Speaker of Parliament is from the Shia community. Finally, while the traditional rift between the right and the left is non-existent in the country, the ministerial portfolios and the 128 seats of deputies are divided equally between Muslims and Christians.

The very fragile government coalition currently in power includes ministers from the country's main parties, such as those of Saad Hariri, Druze feudal leader Walid Jumblatt, Michel Aoun, Nabih Berri, and Hezbollah. Another senior leader, Samir Geagea, leader of the Lebanese Forces (former Christian militia), announced last week that the ministers from his party would resign from the government.

"Something irreversible happened in Lebanon"

Questioned by France 24, the political scientist and professor at the American University of Paris Ziad Majed believes that "something irreversible happened in Lebanon, where a taboo was broken" in recent days. "The novelty that lies in this great popular uprising is its decentralization, which has led to the emergence of regional dynamics that indicate that within each community, citizens rise up against those who claim to represent them and who participate in power. "

Paradoxically, during the last legislative elections organized in May 2018 - the first organized since 2009 because of political blockages - these same leaders and parties had ensured the re-election of their candidates. And so confirmed their hold on the power and representation of their respective communities. How can the Lebanese political actors, which have remained almost unchanged since the civil war, be explained about the political life of the country?

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"The question of elections is linked to the ability to mobilize voters and the power and financing of electoral machines," said Ziad Majed, "Elections in Lebanon benefit major parties that are favored by the clientelist system, while opposition is divided into several lists and does not have the same means and access to the media. "

"In elections, alliances, sometimes unnatural, between big names in the opposition political class, discourage voters from going to vote," he says, "which allows them to stay in power and reproduce same patterns by winning elections with participation rates lower than the participation that we see in current protests. "

Clientelism, corruption, money laundering, illicit enrichment, conflicts of interest ... In addition to the issue of ballot boxes, the complexity of Lebanese politics is maintained by the political system itself, self-centered on its own interests, while the country of Cedar is ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world by the NGO Transparency International.

"The Lebanese sectarian system, as it was conceived, can only lead to a system of corruption because each community leader is in permanent bargaining with others to achieve a kind of balance in which everyone wants his own. a piece of cake, "says Agnès Levallois, Middle East specialist consultant, Vice-President of iReMMO, interviewed by France 24.

From compromise to hegemony

Ziad Majed recalls that the Lebanese institutional system has worked more or less when the political elite was composed of feudal or urban notables who were not in a logic of political militancy compared to other communities. Until the early 1970s when the Lebanon war broke out (1975-1990).

"Since the civil war," he says, "the political culture that constantly sought compromise has been supplanted by the rise of people or political forces who have sought to impose their hegemony in their community, taking advantage of the Syrian occupation [from 1976 to 2005, Ed] and very important regional alliances, such as Iran for Hezbollah or Saudi Arabia for the Hariri family. "

For Ziad Majed, this configuration has allowed the political forces either to renew themselves or to preserve their hold on the representation of their community by mobilizing it against the others. And this, "by using resources from the state or from abroad for the benefit of sympathizers, members of their movements and their relatives, and patronage networks to buy loyalties, as this political system allows, in order to to believe that they are indispensable ".

And when there are fundamental questions about the system itself and how it works, about corruption or big economic issues, "all the political camps, all of whom are allies in the current government and who are fighting each other relentlessly over time. other themes, close ranks and show great solidarity between them if their respective interests are threatened, "insists the political scientist.

Thus, when it is disputed, the Lebanese political system manages to digest shocks, notes Ziad Majed, because he believes there is a strong relationship between the administration and the political elite, between economic projects and political parties and between banks and political leaders, whether at the level of the government, the Parliament or the administration. "They are connected and feel that their respective destinies are linked, which makes them very difficult to confront," he says.

"Everything is blocked because of a well anchored system"

For Ayman Mehanna, an economist by training and director of the Samir Kassir Foundation (named after the well-known journalist assassinated in June 2005) whose mission is to spread democratic culture in Lebanon and the Arab world, the political system is responsible for the "morality crisis" that cross the country. "The economic model of the current political class is built on retrocomissions of major public markets, so it is always the businessmen linked to major political parties who get the contracts awarded by the State and then pay commissions to these political parties ", he explains to France 24.

Only a few years ago, he says, foreign donors, especially Saudi Arabia and Iran, were financing the Lebanese political system (through their Sunni allies for Riyadh and Shiites for Iran) , but this funding has declined sharply since these two regional powers clashed on other theaters, such as in the Gulf or Yemen. "Since then, the only way for the political parties to finance themselves is to scrap the funds of pot of Lebanese state," he said, while the wave of protests was caused by successive increases in taxes imposed by the government.

Except that Lebanon is today in an explosive economic situation, the country going through one of the worst phases of recession of the last thirty years, with more than a quarter of the population living under the poverty line, according to the World Bank. Today, the third largest debt in the world behind Japan and Greece, Lebanon's public debt rises to more than 86 billion euros, or 151% of GDP according to the IMF.

"The protesters are outraged by the economic management of the country and the climate of impunity that reigns in this political class while the corruption scandals are increasing, says Ziad Majed.The younger generation sees that everything is blocked because of 'a system well anchored and designed with a lot of rigidity, it also notes that those who run the country are unable to solve the issues of electricity [the Lebanese are faced with incessant cuts of water and current, Ed] , garbage and the environment. "

And to conclude: "I very much doubt that this same political class will be able to reform the country and the political system.If it does, it will no longer be able to monopolize power, so its actors face a rather serious dilemma: how to reform without committing suicide? "