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Lebanon's Constitution is the oldest in
the Middle East. Established in 1926, it has survived foreign control over
Lebanon, international or Arab. It also increasingly operates as the reference
point for Lebanese citizens. Its longevity is remarkable, even if the
constitutional text has given way to widely divergent interpretations in periods
of revolutionary turmoil.
This situation is only natural on the eve
of a presidential election, so charged the political atmosphere has become since
the assassination of the late prime minister, Rafik Hariri. In far less
polarizing moments, controversy is at the heart of any constitutional
interpretation: remember the Florida electoral count in the 2000 US presidential
election.
I want to open a new controversy,
inspired by an excellent French-language book written by the author and
consultant Leila Barakat. The work is entitled "Of Presidents and the Exercise
of Presidential Functions." Barakat masterfully reviews the history of Lebanese
presidents, from Charles Debbas to Emile Lahoud. Two things are striking: the
mediocrity of so many of the officeholders and the recurrence of "the
presidential disease," as Kamal Jumblatt called it. The disease is that of
incumbents who have tried time and again, sometimes succeeding, in renewing or
extending their mandates beyond their prescribed constitutional term.
Even the respected first president after
Independence, Bishara al-Khoury, succumbed to the disease. Because of his
failing, Lebanon missed the opportunity of having its own George Washington, who
refused an extended term when everyone was begging him to stay on. Barakat
rightly concludes her book on that image. But unlike Elias Hrawi or Emile Lahoud,
Khoury had the decency to resign when faced with the strong rejection of the
Lebanese, before his extended term was completed.
Why does Lebanon suffer from this
"presidential disease" and why has it been so persist? And why have so many
presidents been so mediocre?
I have a simple explanation: The
Constitution has never imposed on presidential candidates a declaration of
intention, nor even a deadline by which they must officially register their
candidacy. In fact, Parliament could meet and decide to appoint Joseph Maroun of
Wichita Falls, Indiana (whoever he may be), if it so wants. It doesn't even need
to ask him whether he is willing to be president. As a result, the most
important office in the Lebanese state is one over which, until the last moment,
backroom deals can be made, often with foreign intervention, by presidential
candidates who have not even declared their candidacy.
This explains why we so often have
presidents who strive to alter the Constitution to remain in power. The failure
to establish even a minimal mechanism for presidential candidacies has been
devastating to Lebanese democracy.
Because candidates do not fight for the
position openly, because they are inclined to play shadow games to get there,
because they have to maneuver through a political minefield which often involves
discrediting others while avoiding being discredited themselves, their behavior
is shaped by an approach that is undemocratic. If a president accedes to power
by stealth, why not remain in power by stealth?
Yet if candidates declared their
intentions properly, campaigned properly, sought alliances properly, convinced
parliamentarians and citizens properly, they would be much less likely to
abandon such respect for the democratic process by later scheming to remain in
power.
Why is there is no mechanism and deadline
for the candidacy? There could be a textual explanation for this. Thanks to a
strong tradition of Lebanese scholars of the presidency, of whom Leila Barakat
is the latest, original copies of the various drafts of the Constitution have
been uncovered in the last decade. The first constitutional project was the
so-called "Statut Organique" for Syria and Lebanon (which were then under the
French Mandate). Its Article 43 affirms that the eventual head of state of
Greater Lebanon be elected by the Representative Council (the predecessor of the
current Parliament), "from a list of three candidates drawn up by the council by
an absolute majority, with the approval of the High Commissioner." The project
is dated December 22, 1924.
From the time of that document until the
drafting of the foundational text of the present Constitution, written in the
hand of Michel Chiha in early 1926, no less than four successive texts
reproduced this form of election. However, it suddenly disappeared in 1926 from
both Chiha's text and the project of French High Commissioner Bertrand de
Jouvenel, under whom the present Constitution was adopted. We probably will
never know why that form of election was dropped. Yet the fact that it was
replaced by no clear guidelines for presidential candidates and candidacies has
led to a long period of mostly mediocre presidents, democratically wanting.
Chibli Mallat has
actively campaigned for the Lebanese presidency. He is S.J. Quinney College
Professor of Law and Politics of the Middle East at the University of Utah. He
also holds the EU Jean Monnet Chair in European Law at St. Joseph University in
Beirut.
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