Personal choice or injunction of Saudi Arabia, its political sponsor?

Speculation is rife in Lebanon after, with tears in his eyes, the former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced, during a press conference organized in Beirut on January 24, that he was retiring from political life.

A few months before the legislative elections scheduled for May 2022, the decision of the main Sunni leader has caused a political earthquake in an economically bankrupt country and increasingly dominated by Shiite Hezbollah and its allies.

A large part of the Sunni community finds itself orphaned, deprived of its zaïm [head from the community] in a country governed by a political system based on the confessional mode, in which the post of Prime Minister goes to one of its members. 

“Even if this is an expected decision, the fact remains that it still caused a shock, explains Karim Emile Bitar, director of the Institute of Political Science at the University of Saint- Joseph from Beirut and director of research at Iris. Some of his supporters did not want to believe it and even thought it was false rumours".

By bowing out at 51, Saad Hariri leaves a big void on the Sunni and national political scene, after leading the government three times between 2009 and 2021.

"This event, which completes a long phase of political harirism, will have important consequences because nature always abhors a vacuum, believes Karim Emile Bitar. And this is particularly true within this community and in Lebanese political life, where historically leaderships have been able to disappear and give way to the emergence of new figures. Except that today a page is turned and we do not yet see who could fill this immense void".

There are many candidates who are already positioning themselves to try to capture the electoral heritage of the Hariri family, the very one which was shaped by former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, Saad's father, who was assassinated in February 2005, and who has made it possible to become a pillar of the political system of the country of the Cedars.

"We are facing both a vacuum and an overflow, because there are a lot of ambitions at stake and a large number of personalities or parties who are already looking to recover Saad Hariri's political market share, underlines Karim Emile Bitar. First there is Saad Hariri's adversary, Hezbollah, which would like to take advantage of the former Prime Minister's withdrawal to infiltrate the Beirut Sunni milieu. And the Shiite party has already begun to support some of its Sunni allies to allow them a possible breakthrough if the legislative elections were to be held as planned". 

"There are also Sunni personalities who are trying to impose themselves, like the businessman and billionaire Fouad Makhzoumi who has a fairly large charitable association and clientelist network and who had taken very firm positions, both against the financial oligarchy than against Hezbollah, continues the researcher Karim Emile Bitar. His speech could find a certain echo in the Sunni street". 

After Saad Hariri, Bahaa Hariri?

But that's not all.

Since in the own clan of "Sheikh Saad", some could be interested in taking over from him.

And this, even though the former Prime Minister announced the suspension of all participation in power and asked his party, the Courant du Futur, not to present candidates for the legislative elections.

"Apart from certain Sunni political figures, such as former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who is part of the Hariri camp, or the current President of the Council of Ministers Najib Mikati, who could be tempted to play their card, there remains an unknown person: this what does Saad Hariri's own older brother, Bahaa Hariri, intend to do?

At the head of a personal fortune estimated by Forbes at 2 billion dollars, Bahaa Hariri is not a member of the Current of the Future.

But he finances and supports a political movement called "Sawa li Lubnan" (Together for Lebanon), which intends to support candidates for the next legislative elections, notably from the 2019 protest.

“Supposedly supported by both Turkey and some Saudi hawks, Bahaa Hariri is on a harder line vis-à-vis Hezbollah than his brother, but at this stage he does not yet have in Lebanon the emotional support from which his brother benefited in the Sunni street", specifies Karim Emile Bitar. 

The researcher indicates that the withdrawal of Saad Hariri could still constitute an opportunity for the small forces drowned in the opposition.

"As historically the Sunnis of Beirut are a community open to ideas of renewal and change, it could be a chance to see the emergence of new faces carrying a very reformist discourse, provided however that they manage to lead this political battle. in a unified way and around a clear vision". 

A departure that strengthens the hold of Hezbollah

?

If the succession of Saad Hariri is open, the fact remains that his decision to throw in the towel has disturbed the tranquility of an immutable political chessboard for several legislatures.

Because the withdrawal of the most powerful Sunni leader in the country, from an electoral point of view, completely reshuffles the cards, analyzes Karim Emile Bitar.

"While some of Saad Hariri's allies, such as the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, have tried to dissuade him from throwing in the towel a few months before the legislative elections, his withdrawal could possibly constitute an opening for the Lebanese Forces of Samir Geagea, indicates- This Christian party fiercely opposed to Hezbollah's hegemony over politics in Lebanon appears today as the main ally of Saudi Arabia, which for two or three years seems to have clearly staked everything on it". 

And this, he adds, even if Saad Hariri's decision "further reinforces the flagrant imbalance of forces in favor of the party of Hassan Nasrallah [the secretary general of Hezbollah]".

"So paradoxically, because it's never easy in Lebanon, some of Saad Hariri's allies can be happy with his withdrawal, while others, among his adversaries, like the Shiite duo made up of Hezbollah and the Amal party, can Hezbollah can indeed regret the departure of its Sunni rival, because they had found a modus vivendi together, and it is perhaps because of this that the Saudis were, in a way growing, angered by Saad Hariri, who instead of confronting Hezbollah, had found some kind of common ground with him".

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