Lebanon cannot change without a decentralized political system

Quickly reading through three key headlines about Lebanon makes you understand where the country stands and who is really in control. The first related to this week’s visit by a Hamas delegation, which concluded with a press briefing thanking President Michel Aoun for his support to the Palestinian people and stating that Palestinian camps were a factor in the stability of the country. The second was the detaining by Hezbollah of two foreign journalists reporting on Lebanon’s fuel crisis. And the third was the leader of Hezbollah’s parliamentary group, Mohammed Raad, criticizing “those who continue to argue as the queues lengthen in front of gas stations, hospitals.”
This is exactly why I have been warning against the voices within the opposition that have downgraded their criticism or demands to the removal of the “corrupt political elite,” or what they call “the ruling mafia.” This is simply because they have been, as we can now clearly see, making the case for Hezbollah’s own narrative and shielding the group from accountability. Indeed, for Hezbollah, the resistance and its people — as they refer to themselves — are above this petty bickering between greedy politicians. However, in their narrative they disregard the fact that they are the real cause of the deadlock, as they have set up the political landscape in a way that gives them oversight and control over state affairs without being responsible for the decisions taken.
As we can easily link the country’s situation to regional affairs, Hezbollah will not budge while Iran is renegotiating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal. Tehran sees the geopolitical balance moving to its advantage in the coming year. Therefore, the suggestion of imposing sanctions on Lebanese politicians while Hezbollah will soon benefit from the lifting of sanctions against Iran will not change much in the political and economic situation in Lebanon. It is something that should be done to punish them for their nefarious role, but we must not expect it to change anything.
There is, nevertheless, a sad truth about the current situation; one that will not make people happy when it is stated. We mostly describe Lebanese as good and helpful people, and this is true. But when we describe the current situation, we describe them as being innocent victims that have done nothing to deserve such punishment. But is this the truth? Are the Lebanese innocent or are they part of this corruption?
I will start to answer with one of the main crises the country is facing, which is the collapse of the banking system and the evaporation of people’s deposits. Many years ago, I remember warning a Lebanese friend of the risks of these high-return accounts, as it was clear the biggest part of the borrowing was allocated to the Lebanese state, which would eventually be unable to repay its debt for obvious reasons. He ignored my comments. And so, as we were recently discussing the terrible situation, I could not help but tell him that agreeing to deposit one’s hard-earned money for high interest rates that were unavailable anywhere else in the world was more like accepting a bribe than being caught in a Ponzi scheme. Most Lebanese knew this all along and were expecting the international community to bail the state (and them) out at some point.

We need to break the current system, which is consistently and ruthlessly used and abused by occupation forces.

Khaled Abou Zahr

If we continue down the Banque du Liban route, another small indication is Circular 331, which was established in 2013 to empower the startup ecosystem in the country. I think many would be surprised if a forensic audit was carried out into the processes and allocations of the funding and the partnerships created for these investments. It would show that the Lebanese upper and middle classes were accomplices of what today they call the political mafia. In fact, very few chose to resist and oppose it. Those who did do not live in Lebanon.
The fact is that this ruling clan structure — that has been exploited by occupation forces — offers protection to its people and is reassuring. The Lebanese have been living with it for generations. In Lebanon, you can probably get away with any crime if you have the right protection, simply because your political leader can offset it within negotiations with other leaders and bypass the justice system. I do not know whether Carlos Ghosn or Ziad Takieddine are innocent or guilty, but the fact they are able to avoid international justice in Lebanon is an indication of how things work in the country.
We can trace this thought process to how elections are conducted and the purchase of votes by various candidates. When I was once discussing with a friend the deficit of political vision and Hezbollah’s role in elections, he bluntly stopped me by stating: “In Lebanon’s elections, you have a lira, you are worth a lira.” In other words, corruption is part of the political system. In that sense, I am confident that politicians who are preparing for next year’s parliamentary elections are quite satisfied that they will be able to buy their votes for much less than in the last elections due to the devaluation of the Lebanese currency. This was also true during the Syrian occupation, and it has continued with Hezbollah.
We need to recognize this if we want to bring true and positive change to the country. The political structure empowers trade-offs and compromises between confessional groups at the cost of the rule of law. The reality is that we need to break this system, which is consistently and ruthlessly used and abused by occupation forces. The only solution I can see for Lebanon is a decentralized political system, if not a full shift toward a federation. There are signs of hope, such as this week’s victory for independent opposition groups in the Order of Engineers and Architects elections, as well as in student elections and the lawyers’ syndicate. We need these voices to push for the right agenda, which is structural change.
Whether we want to recognize it or not, we are still tribes. We are still stuck with blood and soil. The formation of a government to unlock international help will only be a palliative solution that will cost the Lebanese people even more and plunge the country into more debt and incertitude. So the only way to save the country is to break the capacity of the occupation forces to push fear and empower an inter-confessional trade-off system. We urgently need to give more power to the regions and municipalities on every level, including legislative, judicial and executive. Lebanon cannot and will never change until a decentralized political system is put forward. It is time to recognize our own faults and ills to stop the occupying forces using the country to hide in plain sight.

• Khaled Abou Zahr is CEO of Eurabia, a media and tech company. He is also the editor of Al-Watan Al-Arabi.