The plan, intended to deny Muslim voters the latitude to choose Christian candidates, is bound to isolate Lebanese Christians further, while hardening sectarianism nationally.
No leads yet in probe into UNIFIL bombing
Things are getting fishy in south Lebanon. After this story ran a rocket was shot towards Israel, but didn’t make it across and wounded a Lebanese woman.
BEIRUT: Investigators have yet to turn up any solid leads into the recent French UNIFIL bombing or any other bombing this year, making Friday’s attack the third unresolved case for Lebanon’s peacekeepers.
A judicial source told The Daily Star there were “no serious leads” on the groups that carried out the Dec. 11 bombing against the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon or the two previous bombings this year because of the sophistication of the attack and the complexities of the south Lebanon security situation.
This latest bombing adds to a list of ongoing investigations into attacks against UNIFIL in which officials have yet to arrest or name suspects.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2011/Dec-12/156609-no-leads-yet-in-probe-into-unifil-bombing.ashx#ixzz1gMXj3osu
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
On UN Human Rights Day, activists say little progress made in Lebanon over past year
On UN Human Rights Day, Lebanese human rights activists look back over the past year and say their gains have been few and far between. From my story:
BEIRUT: Minor reforms of Lebanon’s human rights laws have been eclipsed by a general stagnation in protecting rights, local activists say as they look back on their efforts over the past year.
Human rights activists say Saturday’s United Nations Human Rights Day marking the U.N. General Assembly’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, isn’t cause for much celebration in Lebanon.
NGO leaders say their groups have seen increased civil society efforts in 2011 yield limited gains while rights violations persist and that Lebanon has become a more difficult environment for rights reporters to work in.
“You would say there was progress if there were strategies and policies and a protection framework in place and I don’t see those yet,” says Darine al-Hage from ALEF, an independent human rights group based in Lebanon. “Look at the variety of these topics and the little that has been done.”
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Article.aspx?id=156500#ixzz1g9KHYqPE (The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
The STL gets funded
*I should note that the funding doesn’t go forward as smoothly as it did if it wasn’t for Mikati staking his political future on the issue. The man seems to have angered almost all of his current allies: “Mikati, who has decided to quit his alliance with Syria and March 8 as fast as possible, knows that he will not be moving to the other side.”*
Despite all the haranguing from March 8 and Hezbollah, PM Najib Mikati is moments away from announcing announced Lebanon will fund(ed) the international court investigating the Hariri murder. The court, which has been set up since 2009, was looked at by some as a major sticking point for the March 8 cabinet ever since Mikati hinted he would resign if Lebanon didn’t pay its 49 percent share of the courts costs. To the point that reporter Mitch Prothero asked:
million $ question in
#Lebanon: Hizb can’t agree to fund the STL. But will they burn the place down if the government decides it must?
While that question hasn’t been entirely answered, the fact that Mikati’s government hasn’t collapsed over the issue is a tacit endorsement from Hezbollah, saying they will go along with the courts funding, for now. And why not? This debate doesn’t bare the hallmarks of a principled stand over power relations that has taken Hezbollah to the streets in the past. Sure the court is an imposition of a “Zionist-imperial body” in the eyes of the pro-resistance crowd, but only partially.
The issue of the killing itself gives court supporters a slight moral high ground in a pursuit for some type of justice, making the issue one to avoid staking a future on. After that the court needs two things: some cash and more time for the court intevstiagators to bumble their way to a verdict. I’ll hazard that in the eyes of the pro-resistance: a few million bucks just isn’t the prize proud men see as worth fighting over, and if the court needs more time to make itself look sillier, why not give it to them?
Eds: Updates with developments at 1:12 Revised silly headline, added Mikati note at 1:29
Syria and March 14
- mitchprothero: #lebanon is not about to explode into violence. you need two sides for a fight. there's not even a perception of m14 power on the street.
- me: Where does Tripoli rate?
- mitchprothero: ahh good one. there's always a level of issues there. but so long as an armored brigade sits on Syria street, it's containable.
- me: Will there b a direct relationship between Assad power decline and M14's street presence? Or is M14 power checked elsewhere?
- mitchprothero: it's not immune to regional change, but today, hizbollah is invincible domestically. and they use syria but don't rely on them.
- Comment: It seems only a full decline of the Assad regime would lead to some type of vocal opposition in Lebanon. The track record for Syrian opposition, understandably up until now isn't very encouraging (they have a way of being assassinated or mysteriously disappearing), And you could even argue that the Lebanon state represents another front for the Syrian regime / anti-regime battle, that could be waged irrespective of the outcome in Syria proper.
Organize Palestinian arms in coordination with Army: PLO official
It seems if this arms coordination occurred successfully it could lead to a real discussion over Hezbollah arms.
MP: Proportional electoral system difficult to apply
Busy day yesterday (accepted a job offer) but it looks like at least one MP agrees adding proportional elections will be difficult, although his reasoning isn’t made clear.
Nasrallah did not close door on STL funding: Mikati
It sounds like after much hemming and hawing the STL probably gets funded.
(Possible) problems with Lebanon proportional elections
So as promised Prime Minister Mikati’s Cabinet discussed the 2013 electoral law Wednesday. Interior Minister Marwan Charbel briefed the cabinet on the plan of which The Daily Star offered the barest of outlines:
Under the draft law, Lebanon would be divided into 10 to 14 medium-sized districts. The districts would be larger than a qada, which was adopted in the last parliamentary polls in 2009, but smaller than the governorate.
….
The draft law lays out a version of a preferential voting system whereby voters select an electoral list and vote for two members from the list. The first vote determines how many candidates from each list are elected and the second vote determines who from the list takes office.
The draft law requires a complete list such that the number of members on each list matches the number of seats up for election in the district.
On the district size: 10-14 districts makes about 10 MPs per district. This is quite a small number for a proportional election, especially considering (if religious quotas are preserved) each district will actually be subdivided by religion. So the seats that can be distributed via a proportional system are only maybe 3-4 per religion.
On the format: So the list remains, ostensibly preserving some notion of cross-confessional voting. What is added is a second vote, but details about that and how exactly the list will function is still hazy. But here is a best guess:
Lists would need to be closed (no more crossing out or writing your own votes) in order for specific list totals to equate to seats because varying lists would create an entirely new list total.
So that if 5 lists were used seat getting would be distributed like this:
District 1: 10 seats 4 Sunni, 2 Maronite, 2 Shia, 2 Greek Orthodox
List A 32% , List B 21% , List C 19%, List D 10% and List E 18%
So according to “The first vote determines how many candidates from each list are elected and the second vote determines who from the list takes office.”
So with 10 seats it takes 10% of the vote to win a seat, distributing the seats like so:
List A: 3 B:2 C 2 D: 1 E: 2 (List E when divided by 10 has the highest remainder so gets the 10th seat)
What happens next is kind of murky and is problematic if religious quotas are kept: My guess would be that after that seats are then rank ordered by 2nd votes, which could lead to some very funky math.
What if List B which gets 2 seats and its highest votegetters are evenly distributed between 2 Greek Orthodox, it gets all 2 Greek Orthodox seats in the district right? But what if List D that gets one seat has a votegetter that has more 2nd votes than any of those 2 Greek Orthodox seats on List B?
So List D gets the 1 Greek Orthodox seat and list B gets another. But List B had enough support for 2 seats, who gets the second seat on the B list? What if the next highest 2nd voter getter on List B is a Sunni whose total 2nd votes are much less than any Sunni running in the district. Do they get the Sunni seat over another list?
Unless I’m missing something (please point it out because this is complicated) it seems this type of proportional system could only work around that strange math in two ways:
a) If there were only two lists involved (being March 14 and March 8). Which would mostly do away with the proportional benefit of including more of Lebanon’s numerous minor parties in parliament and just add M14 and M8 representation where they have lower levels of support.
b) If religious quotas are done away with. This would be major news anyway you cut it and the March 14 opposition would likely decry it as a power grab by Mikati and March 8.
As to who would actually benefits the most from a proportional change, that’s a whole nother’ can of worms.
Corrected minor errors at 11:25 PM
Student supporters of Hariri, Berri fight at Beirut university
I guess I should have gone outside and checked what all the fuss was about…
