Beirut -

With expatriates voting in 58 Arab and Western countries, which took place on Friday and Sunday, a new transformation occurred in the scene of the 2022 parliamentary elections, through lists emanating from civil society, and running in the elections under the slogan "Change".

While the country is experiencing the peak of political polarization between lists that reflect the solid core of the March 8 coalition, represented by the duo of Hezbollah - the Amal Movement, the Free Patriotic Movement, and the Marada Movement with their allies, and others representing the March 14 forces opposed to Hezbollah, which are running in the elections for the first time in the absence of the Future Movement, and in its vanguard The Forces and Progressive Socialist Party and former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and their allies.

In Lebanon, 60 lists of forces that describe themselves as “changeability” compete out of 103 spread in 15 districts, and many believe that the failure of these forces to weave a cross-regional alliance has produced an excess of candidates and lists, inconsistencies and similarities in political titles and slogans.


How is the map of the powers of the lists emanating from civil society formed within one week of the polling on May 15?

It can be said that the regulations emanating from civil society are divided into 3 groups:

First - the traditional civil society forces that existed before October 17, 2019, some of whose members ran in the 2018 elections, such as the "We are all national" coalition, which formed 9 lists in Lebanon at the time. Among its well-known names and the current candidate is the resigned MP Paula Yacoubian, who is currently formed in the 2022 elections. Competition in Beirut First District.

Second - the civil society forces that were formed after October 17, 2019, which joined with many and scattered groups, and formed in an uncoordinated manner, lists in the districts of Lebanon, and included new personalities, most of which were related to the elections for the first time.

Third - Movements that establish an organized presence in most of Lebanon's circles.

Among them is the "Citizens and Citizens in a State" group and its General Secretary, former Minister Charbel Nahas, who says that his only group has a clear electoral program to get out of the crisis.

This group constituted individual and incomplete lists, in all the districts, except for the "third South" district and carried the slogan "Able".

The "Sawa Lebanon" movement, which was recently founded by Baha Rafik Hariri, has also emerged, and raises the slogan "Supporting the Forces of Change" without Baha Hariri being a candidate in it.

But this movement, which raises the slogan of sovereignty and whose banners invade Lebanon’s regions, supports two lists politically, logistically and financially: “Let Beirut remain” in the second Beirut district, and the list “Advanced Akkar” in the first northern district” in addition to supporting personalities in other lists.

Attitudes of the forces of change

Al Jazeera Net interviewed 3 personalities from the lists of these forces, to shed light on the nature of their battle, and the guests are: Najat Aoun Saliba, a candidate for the Maronite seat in the Fourth District of Mount Lebanon (Chouf-Aley) on the "Unite for Change" list, Ali Murad, a candidate for the Shiite seat in a constituency The South is third on the "Together for Change" list, and Ibrahim Mneimneh is the candidate for the Sunni seat in Beirut's second district on the "Beirut Change" list.

Najat Saliba is running in the Chouf-Aley mountain district (communication sites)

Najat Saliba: We cry out to the regime, "Stop the violence."

In the fourth district of Mount Lebanon, in which 7 lists are competing, the presence of the Druze community and the head of the Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Jumblatt, who seeks to imitate the leadership of his son, Representative Taymour Jumblatt, is allied with the Lebanese Forces in his battle, in exchange for another political alliance that includes the Free Patriotic Movement and my Lebanese Democratic Party headed by Talal Arslan, and the Arab unification headed by Wiam Wahhab.

Among the lists of civil society in this department, the "Unity for Change" list emerged, which includes academics and faces that emerged from the October 17 movement.

Saliba is one of the members of the list. A Lebanese woman with American citizenship, she is a professor of analytical chemistry at the American University of Beirut, recipient of the L'Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science in 2019, entitling her to be one of the 100 women in the world who achieved this.

She says that she, along with her colleagues on the list, is running the electoral battle after the port explosion on August 4, 2020, as "we felt that our homes and our existence were threatened, and that the authority did not stop violating our dignity."

The painful reality, according to Siba, prompted many to leave Lebanon, "but I decided with others not to leave our country and not to surrender by giving them the country as they wanted, so we went to the democratic confrontation through elections."

She says, "Wherever we are, as changers, we seek to put an end to the practice of the ruling system, and to shout at them that there is no tyranny of our destinies, in return for consecrating their leaders, interests, presence and enjoying their wealth."


Saliba points out that their actual battle is to demand the most basic rights of citizens, including health, food security, education and living, and to put an end to the waves of immigration, which has become a forced choice for Lebanese youth, "while they left us none of the titles of sovereignty and freedom."

The researcher talks about the repression experienced by citizens who want to support the forces of change, "but we notice a great interaction with our discourse, especially with the expatriates who are freed from the influence of the practices of traditional parties."

And she remembers that most of the change forces were born after October 17, 2019, and "are facing a system that is more than 40 years old, which means that the road to confrontation is long, and we are present for them, and we will prepare more every year, because the oppositional change discourse is growing like a snowball."

And she adds, "The title of our list is to seek to adopt a unified personal status law, and to provide all means to promote human rights and women in particular, as an obligatory crossing to confront the clientelistic system, and to build a state in which everyone is equal under the roof of the law."

Ibrahim Mneimneh says they are breaking Hariri's monolith in Beirut (Al-Jazeera)

Ibrahim Mneimneh: We break unilateralism in the absence of Hariri

In Beirut's second district, which has a Sunni majority, 9 lists compete, where the absence of Prime Minister Hariri left a great impact on the competition, and some civil society lists are trying to advance, foremost of which is the "Beirut Change" list.

Ibrahim Mneimneh, one of the most prominent faces of this list, an architect, urban planner and political activist, ran in 2016 on the “Beirut Madinati” list in the municipal elections, and in 2018 was nominated for the “We are all Beirut” list in the parliamentary elections without luck, and was active in the October 17 demonstrations / October.

Mneimneh considers that Hariri's retreat gave an opportunity for many of the forces of change to advance.

But the basis, according to Mneimneh, is to give an indication to the people of Beirut that unilateral leadership threatens their existence, and that reliance on one leader, to dissolve and link up in the city, is a great danger to it, which led to his withdrawal to create a great vacuum, with the leadership and the political culture that was absent as a result of relying on his person only.


He says that people in the Sunni-majority areas have sensed the repercussions of this void, while "we are presenting a political discourse of change and a different model of action that identifies with the people, within a democratic framework."

Mneimneh points out that the title of their project is “Facing the system with a discourse based on the idea of ​​a civil state, rights and citizenship, confronting illegal weapons, distributing just losses in the banking system, and restructuring the economy to become productive, most of which require an active role for the state in public affairs, different from previous practices, which It relies on sectarian quotas and political clientelism.”

As for regional relations, from their point of view, “they must be based on the national interest, whose shape is decided by the Lebanese people, while today it imposes foreign policy on the part of the pillars of the system.”

Mneimneh believes that the call to boycott the elections fell relatively in the absence of Hariri, "as we notice a momentum in voting that was manifested in the expatriate elections."

He says that the forces of change have succeeded to a large extent in Lebanon, and "proved that the regional experiences of change are the most successful, matched by networking between groups in the field, logistically and in the media, because the goal is to confront the system."

Ali Murad is running for the "Together for Change" list in the third South District (Al-Jazeera)

Ali Murad: Our achievement is historic in the face of the duo

In the third district of the south, which has a Shiite majority, where the popular weight of the duo of Hezbollah and the Amal movement is based, the lowest number of lists was recorded among all the districts, and only 3 lists compete in it, among which is the most fortunate list of the duo "Hope and Loyalty".

In this constituency, a list "Together for Change" appeared, which includes personalities running for the elections for the first time, and their names emerged in the October 17 movement as well.

Among the faces of the list is the academic and law professor Ali Murad, who says that their list "Together for Change" is engaged in a battle to break the dominance of political representation, and to engage the south in the national battle as a whole.

He points out that their constituency includes basic symbols of authority, and MP Ali Hassan Khalil (Amal Movement) and banker Marwan Khair al-Din are running for office, with what he represents of intersections between Hezbollah and the Amal movement, and political, banking, family and sectarian intersections.

Murad says, "Our battle against the authority with a unified list in the south was a historic achievement for us, despite our awareness of the difficulty of confrontation because it is a major area of ​​influence for Hezbollah and the Amal movement."


He considers that their district embodies the hegemony of the authority and its parties in the south, making it one of the most cruel in light of "their control of state institutions, municipal resources, and public jobs. The clientelism has become a persistent problem for years, in contrast to the complete absence of political pluralism."

With the consolidation of the opposition list in the south, Murad says, "We present options at the national and southern levels, in return for the options of Hezbollah, which protected the regime after October 17, 2019, and works and continues to protect it in alliance with the Amal Movement, the Free Patriotic Movement and others."

He talks about the positive interaction of the people of the south with them, and "it is an additional achievement in a region whose people have always withheld expressing their opinion, and what matters is the ballot boxes, especially as we seek to achieve a breach and record one or more results in the constituency."

While "the authority wants to reproduce itself through elections, and in every district there is an opposition list on which voters can cast their votes."

Will the forces of change succeed in convincing the Lebanese street of its program away from the traditional parties?

(Al Jazeera)

"Experimental Forces": Where did she fail her suitor and her battle?

Academic and political writer Wissam Saadeh proceeds with Al Jazeera Net from his conventional approach to the forces emanating from civil society, describing them as "experimental forces".

He considers that Lebanon faces two cases: "tested forces" that have a long history of political experience and a varying role that contributed to what Lebanon has achieved politically, living, economically and security-wise, and their experience does not bode well.

In contrast to the "experimental forces" - he means the forces emanating from civil society - have hopes and aspirations for change, but they lack political practice.

The researcher elaborates on his explanation considering that these experimental forces have two characteristics:

The first: a simplistic and reductive reading of the Lebanese reality, linked to the dualism of “the system of bad guys versus the people,” which deeply reflects a populist discourse.

While the Lebanese reality, in his opinion, urgently needs to distinguish each file from the other, and each group from the other.

The second: There are basic issues that these empirical forces do not clarify their position on.

He gives an example: If she managed to win 10 seats in parliament, she did not clarify whether she would unite her position in terms of participating in the government or not, or the way she did politics after reaching the parliamentary session.

He asks: Will you be content with objecting to everything, or will you think about how to negotiate with the powerful and controlling forces?

Is it with the participation of civil society opposition governments?

Will her behavior be similar to figures emanating from civil society who became ministers in the government of Hassan Diab, and after him Najib Mikati?


The researcher finds that these forces in political tactics are also experimental, as most of them practice negativity on the basis of rejecting everything as an easier option.

He says, "The concept of loyalty and opposition is distorted, as Lebanon witnessed the entry of many oppositions to successive governments, and this does not happen in any other government in the world."

He talks about two types of opposition: the reformist opposition within the regime, and the radical opposition against and outside the regime.

In the case of Lebanon, the forces emanating from civil society fall under the first type of opposition, "but at the same time they commit themselves to slogans against the system as a whole, which exacerbates confusion and lack of clarity."

He explains that these forces, regardless of the number of their seats, will enter Parliament facing two entitlements: the election of a new Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the strongest candidate is Nabih Berri, and presidential elections for which the Christian forces are fighting, led by the Free Patriotic Movement, and the first is a prelude to the second.

It is noteworthy that after the Taif Agreement, Lebanon was not able to regularly elect a new president every 6 years, and there was either an extension or a constitutional vacuum between two presidencies, or an extension and then a constitutional vacuum.

At a time when the language of sects prevails, and facing these entitlements and issues that will become a fait accompli since May 16, Saadeh believes that these forces are facing major challenges that require procedural steps, which will not benefit them from permanent negativity, and will consequently determine the weight of their political action in front of public opinion.