Regardless of the municipal elections’ outcome, this occasion cannot change anything in the political- environmental scene in Lebanon. A “temporary enthusiasm” for the development of electoral programs and running for elections will not lead to change, just as ” one swallow does not make a summer”. As we have already mentioned on more than one occasion, especially while criticising the civil movement which only protested when the wastes’ odor couldn’t be bore anymore, and came out with the slogan “You Stink”.
The enthusiasm of many people in the civil society could also be evaluated, even a few months prior to the municipal elections, and before electoral programs and the participation in running for elections, especially in the capital, Beirut.
Claiming change and proposing alternative programs, new faces, and alternative forces, require more than one program. Even programs, cannot be presented in a certain electoral moment, regardless of their importance, and despite the thirst over them, amidst the extension of the Parliament and the election of a President for the country.
Electoral programs don’t just come up from the meeting of activists and enthusiasts with different expertise, or from agreeing to participate in the elections. They need a long time to accumulate ideas, struggles, and collaborations with people; this should begin long before the election dates and it does not end when the elections end. These electoral programs need a broader intellectual, political, and regulatory framework, similar to that of the traditional political parties, but with a new and different intellectual production; one that is inspired by change.
The electoral programs also need a flexible regulatory framework, one that can come up with candidates that are well-known in their political parties, or even come up with supporters and citizens interested in community concerns. They need people who have held discussions at seminars, websites; people whom trust was built with over a long period of time.
The intellectual framework should also include re-definition of a lot of concepts such as power, democracy, the state and its role, human rights, and development … and many others that need to have new meanings, taking into account the key variables, including the effects of every economic and social option on the environment, which is no longer a detailed matter in our modern lives. They should also take into account the rights of the future generations, that are supposed to reconsider the concept of human rights itself and to extend it beyond borders ….
The new programs of these new political parties should also include subjects of new relevant draft laws, such as parliamentary and municipal elections laws, which need to be adjusted in the direction of the relative law, while expanding and modifying the idea of decentralization at the same time. There should also be assurance that the main battle is to rebuild a strong central state, and to redefine its role in the economy and the preservation of rights and the confirmation of the principle of separation of powers …
We should not neglect the idea that decentralization or municipal elections are the passage to change, because the rule is that decentralization under a weak central state produces chaos, and that the existence of a strong, centralized civil state, produces successful and useful decentralization.
Will we choose the most difficult and sustainable, or will we be the fastest to emerge and the fastest to deteriorate, just as the case was in recent campaigns on wastes, which emerged from suffering and real needs, but their outcome was different, as they contributed to increasing frustration rather than increasing hope doses and the possibilities of changing for the better?!
