“Lebanon Debate” – Walid Khoury
The Lebanese political scene no longer resembles the one that has ruled the country since 1990. Nabih Berri and Walid Jumblatt, who for decades formed two main pillars in government-making and settlements, today stand far from the heart of the executive authority, while the President of the Republic, Joseph Aoun, and the Prime Minister, Nawaf Salam, are at the forefront of the scene, without succeeding in forming a coherent decision-making center.
This does not mean that Berri and Jumblatt have lost their cards. Berri still holds the House of Representatives and a strong parliamentary bloc, while Jumblatt maintains a bloc capable of weighting some of the issues. But they are no longer daily partners in running the state, as they were throughout the post-Taif period.
The frequency of the announced meetings reflects the magnitude of this transformation. Jumblatt met with Salam on April 27, and then another announced meeting was not held between them before August 24, an interval of approximately 4 months. His meetings with Aoun also seem far between, as they met on March 23, before another meeting in late August.
The occurrence of these meetings does not negate the state of divergence, but rather confirms it. Jumblatt now appears at major stations, without being part of a permanent consultation channel that precedes decisions and participates in making them. He enters Baabda and the Saray, but he is no longer inside the room where settlements are cooked, as he was in previous eras.
However, the duality that came to power in place of Berri and Jumblatt is also not unified. The relationship between Aoun and Salam is witnessing increasing tension over appointments, decision-making status, and the limits of each other’s influence, coinciding with a new political direction taken by the Prime Minister.
Salam, who arrived at the Serail with a judicial and diplomatic background and a discourse that crossed traditional alignments, began to act as a project Sunni authority, taking advantage of the vacuum left by the absence of the Future Movement and the decline of traditional leadership.
In this context, Salam insisted on appointing Judge Ahmed Rami Al-Hajj as a discriminatory public prosecutor and Judge Osama Mneimneh as head of the Judicial Inspection Authority, based on his consideration that his presence within the authority was not reflected in the security appointments, and his endeavor to restore his position within the main centers in the state.
The same trend appeared in his support for the nomination of Ambassador Abdul Sattar Issa to the International Court of Justice, amid objections to transforming an international position based on legal competence and geographical representation into something resembling a sectarian quota.
As for the latest arena of tension between Aoun and Salam, it is the issue of the vacancy of professors at the Lebanese University. Salam insists on passing it in the Council of Ministers, while the President of the Republic opposes the proposed formula because of the sectarian imbalance it contains. Here, the disagreement is no longer related to a single appointment, but rather to the criteria governing the distribution of positions within the state.
The amnesty law came to give Salam an additional opportunity to establish his presence within the Sunni street. After Aoun signed the law, Salam announced that he had called the President of the Republic and thanked him, before giving his directions to the competent departments in the Prime Minister’s Office to publish it on the same day, through a special issue of the Official Gazette.
The step demonstrated the extent of the urgency in transforming the law into a direct political achievement, and it also revealed that Salam was no longer content with managing files from his constitutional position, but rather began to present himself as the owner of achievements directed to a specific political environment.
On the other hand, Berri returns to using the tool he still holds tightly: the House of Representatives. The session to discuss the next government comes within the Council’s oversight role, as Article 136 of its bylaws stipulates allocating a session for questions and answers, interrogations, or general discussion after every 3 working sessions at most.
But the regulatory cover does not eliminate the political significance of the timing. The session is the first to discuss a peace government since its formation, and comes amidst accumulated objections to the budget, taxes, electricity, appointments, and security and sovereignty policies. The Prime Minister may find himself facing a heated debate that may lead to a vote of confidence in the government or one of its ministers.
Therefore, the invitation to the session alone does not constitute evidence that Berri is targeting Salam, but its timing and the nature of the files that will be raised give it a clear political dimension. Through it, Berri reminds that the decline of his influence within the executive authority does not mean his exit from the equation, and that he is still able to use Parliament to monitor the government and re-impose his presence.
Berri is not a marginal player in the system, but he is no longer a direct partner in executive decision-making as he was before. Its position is not linked to Iranian developments alone, but is also affected by its relationship with Hezbollah, the internal need for a Shiite negotiating reference, its Arab and international connections, and the existing balance between Baabda and the Serail.
As for Jumblatt, he faces a more profound transformation. For decades, he was the egg and the mediator that the powers needed to install a majority or pass a settlement. However, the transfer of party leadership to Taymour Jumblatt, coinciding with the shifting balance of power, made his presence closer to intermittent consultation than to actual partnership in the decision.
On the other hand, Hezbollah did not leave political life, but it retreated significantly from the position it previously occupied. After he controlled a large part of the state’s decisions and had the actual ability to impose or disrupt options, he lost an essential aspect of his influence within the executive authority, and his ability to protect his allies and control sovereign and security files declined.
Thus, Lebanon stands before a new and unstable equation: Aoun and Salam are at the forefront of power, but they are competing for its leadership, and Berri and Jumblatt have moved away from the center of the executive decision, while Hezbollah is no longer the player that limits the state or imposes its rhythm.
The state does not suffer from the absence of players, but rather from their abundance without a reference to bring them together. Political decisions are dispersed, centers of power are fragmented, and the relationship between institutions is governed more by competition than by partnership. Between the decline of the old equation and the faltering birth of the alternative, Lebanon appears to be a country with existing institutions, but without a single political center to lead it.
