An Election Like No Other…
When literal survival is at stake, will Lebanese vote wisely?
A grizzly fight for the fate of Lebanon is set to take place on the 15th of May 2022. From the fiery core of the popular “October 17 Revolution,” independent faces and parties have risen to battle it out with the outdated establishment.
But this is no ordinary election season.
This is an election in a country where the minimum wage stooped to $24 per month. Basic necessities have become luxuries and simple rights disregarded, and as a person living in Lebanon, I have seen first hand the suffering and anguish.
Starvation glares at us, reduces our hearth to a pale flicker, haunts our days no less than our nights.
With the specter of collapse looming over the heads of Lebanese folk, the May 2022 General Election seems to faintly luminesce from the far end of the eerie tunnel.
There are grounds for hope. The true opposition plots.
The question remains… Why are these elections so different?
The Difference is in…
1. The Stirring Youth Diaspora;
This election is characterized by the abnormally high diaspora turnout. After the events of October 2019 when millions of Lebanese flooded the streets in rage, Lebanon’s emigrant community has been increasingly involved in the nation’s politics.
Organizations helped mobilize members of the diaspora to pre-register through 48-hour registration marathons in November.
This election cycle, the total number of registered expats reached over 250,000 according to information released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants. Compared to the 82,000 voters in 2018; this is a significant increase and should not be disregarded.
The change in the electoral law permitting the newly registered voters abroad to vote for all 128 parliamentary seats has been warmly welcomed by the opposition.
New networks and initiatives such as Mada Network and Minteshreen are actively amassing followers that are committed to expelling establishment parties.
However, the Kataeb Party, and the Lebanese Communist Party have formed coalitions with several similar independent networks; effectively, jeopardizing the latter’s legitimacy among the exhausted and estranged electorate that is thirsty for change.
2. The Humanitarian Crisis;
Two years of dwindling resources and tanking economy have led Lebanon into a dire humanitarian crisis that has no end in sight.
A study by the United Nations reports:
“82% of the population lives in multidimensional poverty, which takes into account factors other than income, such as access to health, education and public utilities.”
Moreover, the same study concluded that 33% of households have no access to healthcare, and the number of people deprived of vital medicines has doubled.
Electrical blackouts throwing us back to the stone age are the norm for most Lebanese. (I’ve covered them extensively in The Life of a Teen in a Collapsed State: 5 Realities)
The Lebanese authorities strain to provide temporary relief. In December, the Ministry of Social Affairs launched a ration card programme despite being grossly shortfunded. With an estimated pricetag of $556m, the Lebanese government still has yet to announce how it will be funding the aid promised to arrive in March 2022.
As always, it appears that the ruling class promises with no intention of delivering.
3. The Explosion in the Port of Beirut:
To foreigners reading, I can confirm that the 4th of August is not yet forgotten. It will never be.
The blast deepened grooves in Lebanon’s weak infrastructure, worsened the humanitarian crisis, as well as aggravated the surge in COVID-19 cases.
The country is broken.
Critical hospitals and health institutions in the capital were decimated by the blast. Now, hospitals are overloaded and professionals in the field are emigrating at the fastest rates since the beginning of the civil war in 1975.
Anonymously, a nurse in one of Beirut’s major hospitals told us they are applying to jobs abroad. Their monthly salary is $150 and they cannot afford their commute to Beirut any longer due to spiking gas prices. Now, the nurse hitches rides with family members headed to offices in Beirut.
Every day, their hospital is understaffed, underequipped, and underpaid. The current Omicron wave has hit them hard so are looking for an escape out of this Abyss.
Conclusion:
Although the October 17 Revolution is bound to freshen the climate in parliament with new and independent faces, it is unlikely that the Lebanese electorate truly leaves behind our bigoted “Princes of War.”
What’s ahead is a mystery, I can only hope and pray that misery, hunger, and a destroyed capital are enough to convince us, Lebanese, to make the right choice at the polls.
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