A continued political stalemate

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By Mohamad Bazzi

Five months after holding parliamentary elections, Lebanon is still without a government. The pro-Western coalition that won the vote is floundering in the morass of Lebanon's sectarian politics, and the country is once again drifting toward crisis.

What is wrong with Lebanon, and why is it so hard to form a government?

After the June 7 elections, a simplistic narrative emerged in the West: Because Hezbollah and its allies were defeated at the polls, the Shi'ite militant group would lose some of its luster and a pro-U.S. political coalition would rule Lebanon.

But in fact, Hezbollah remains the country's dominant military and political force. Hezbollah holds the key to both domestic and external stability: Its actions will determine whether there is another war with Israel or whether Lebanon will once again be wracked by internal conflict. The current political vacuum gives Hezbollah free rein to continue its military buildup in southern Lebanon.

Saad Hariri, the Sunni leader and U.S.-backed prime-minister-designate, has been unable to form a Cabinet - with the defection of Druze chieftain Walid Jumblatt to the Hezbollah camp just the latest of Mr. Hariri's problems. But this political maneuvering is only a symptom of a much deeper problem: an antiquated power-sharing system adopted six decades ago.

Political deadlock in Lebanon can devolve quickly into sectarian violence. The last impasse over a government went on for 18 months. During that time, Lebanon was without a president for six months - and the parliamentary vote to choose a new head of state was postponed 19 times. The stalemate finally was broken in May 2008, when Hezbollah ignited the worst internal fighting since the end of Lebanon's civil war.

In response to Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's orders outlawing Hezbollah's underground fiber-optic communication network and dismissing a Hezbollah-affiliated security chief at the Beirut airport, the militia dispatched hundreds of heavily armed fighters into the largely Sunni areas of West Beirut. They quickly routed Sunni militiamen, seized their political offices and shut down media outlets owned by Mr. Hariri.

Each Lebanese faction accuses the other of serving external masters. Indeed, Lebanon is part of the ongoing proxy war in the region - pitting Iran and Syria (which support Hezbollah and its allies) against the United States, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab regimes (which back a coalition of Sunni and Christian parties).

But although external players have a hand in the latest political paralysis, they do not deserve all the blame. Syrian President Bashar Assad and Saudi King Abdullah recently reconciled in Damascus, but that did not break the impasse in Lebanon.

For the most part, the Lebanese did this to themselves - and they need to find a political settlement of their own. Otherwise, the Sunni-Shi'ite rift in Lebanon will explode, especially because it has been fueled by years of sectarian bloodletting in Iraq.

Lebanon's problems are rooted in a 1943 power-sharing agreement installed when the country won its independence from French colonial rule. The system was designed to keep a balance among 18 religious sects, dividing power between a Maronite Christian president, a Sunni prime minister and a Shi'ite speaker of Parliament. This confessional system extends from the top ranks of government to the lowest rungs of civil service jobs and has barely changed since it was put in place.

When civil war broke out in 1975, the political imbalance helped drive the major sects to form their own militias. Because of the confessional system, Lebanese political institutions never got a chance to develop; the country remained dependent on the powerful clans and feudal landlords that held sway in much of Lebanon. The zaeem, or confessional leader who usually inherited rule from his father, became paramount during the war.

Confessionalism leads to a weak state. It encourages horse trading and alliances with powerful patrons, and it is easily exploited by outside powers (Syria, Iran, the United States and Saudi Arabia being the latest examples). But most of the current players are too invested in this system to really change it. Foreign patrons do not want change, either, because that could reduce their influence.

Even if the two factions defuse the latest stalemate and reach a compromise on a new government, another political crisis is sure to emerge unless Lebanon's leaders - and its people - tackle the root causes of the country's instability. Eventually, the Lebanese will have to decide what kind of country they want: one built on sectarian gerrymandering or a more democratic way of sharing power.

Mohamad Bazzi is an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.