Posts Tagged ‘transparency’
Do you need to change anything in Lebanon? Are Lebanon’s youth in political parties waiving off reforms?
Posted on: September 4, 2013
Do you need to change anything in Lebanon? Are Lebanon’s youth in political parties waiving off reforms?
Who needs change?
Are Lebanon’s youth in political parties waiving off reforms within their parties?
For decades, Lebanese politics has been ruled by a small group of men. The obvious question is “why not get some fresh faces in government”?
How can you bring fresh faces in government if the political parties have no incentives for bringing fresh faces within their ranks?
This seemed to be the underlying subtext of a United Nations report on youth in politics, released earlier this week to a small audience at Parliament’s third floor auditorium.
Though many youth are active in parties, few are given decison-making positions, the report found.
The political parties also lack transparency, with budgets and political platforms either secret or nonexistent.
Perhaps most interesting of all, the report found most Lebanese political parties do not even hold elections.
Habib Battah posted:
The report, which was carried about on behalf of the UNDP by governance consultants Beyond Development and Reform, recommended term limits for party leaders as a possible way to see new faces in leadership positions–and to chart a path toward future growth.
“What will happen when the leader is gone,” posed BRD consultant Carmen Geha.
But many of those in attendance, including youth representatives from Lebanon’s dominant parities, balked at the suggestion of term limits for their leaders.
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| Tashnag’s Bakradonian |
“Who are you to force a change in leadership,” asked Ashod Bakradonian, representative from the Armenian Tashnag party.
“This is an internal issue. We should be able to keep our leaders for as long as we want.”
“You are so right,” said the representative from Hezbollah. “We want the Sayyed,” he added, in a reference to Hezbollah Secretary General, Sayer Hassan Nasrallah. (Time to split the political leader from the spiritual leader?)
If someone has a problem with the leadership, they should change parties, he explained– a comment echoed by the others.
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| Youssef Bassam from Hezbollah’s youth delegation |
It was one of the few moments of agreement among the partisan youth representatives, who frequently mocked one another throughout the two hour session.
Another recommendation called for a free access to information law. Following the civil war, television licensing had been restricted largely to groups associated with the parties in power, thus leaving a gap in objective reporting on government and party affairs.
When the question of transparency came up, some joked about seeing transparency in Hezbollah’s military wing. The Hezbollah member answered: “We are all the military wing.”
When the moderator explained some parties didn’t respect the rights of women–others suggested there were parties that didn’t respect rights of the army.
The report also revealed that some parties have not even been officially registered with the government.
“Raise your hand Youssef,” a delegate who did not identify himself sitting with the March 14 members shouted out, pointing at the Hezbollah representative.
“We were registered in 1992,” Youssef shot back.
Despite this penchant for rules, the accuser spent most of the time playing games on his phone, pausing for the occasional snicker.
Other representatives, such as those from the Kateab party, argued that Lebanon lacked political culture and identity– impediments to reform. But the same participants also rejected a recommendation to mandate all Lebanese parties have a minimum 1% membership in every qada (district/county), which could force the factions to be more inclusive and less territorial.
“Look at him,” one pointed toward the Armenian delegate. “He’s not Arab, why should we force him to be Arab?”
“Are you guys joking or speaking seriously,” Gilbert Doumit a consultant with BRD asked the delegates, urging a return to the study recommendations.
“Power corrupts. There should be a ceiling for power,” he said.
Others in the room rejected dealing with Lebanese parties altogether.
“We cannot build a political future on a false foundations,” a representative from Min Ajel El Joumhouryia (For the Sake of the Republic) commented. The new political group was part of efforts to occupy downtown Beirut earlier this year, protesting the postponement of elections and the lack of accountability for MPs.
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| A delegate from Min Ajal El Joumouriya rejects the party system |
But a Syrian Baath party representative countered, warning the new movements not to sideline official parties, “who had sacrificed many martyrs for this country.”
“I guess we’ll need martyrs to get recognized,” the Joumhouriya member murmured quietly.
But after we wrapped up, one of the UN delegates felt ill about the general atmosphere. “It makes you want to cry,” the representative said of the constant bickering and rude interruptions–the general lack of listening to the other side.
Moderator Carmen Geha had at one point noted that the room served as a microcosm of the political atmosphere at large. Rather than focus on local representation, the delegates argued fiercely over foreign policy issues.
Perhaps this hints at the heart of the matter.
The study had found that many youth join parties based on family or sectarian ties, rather than actual policies or positions on issues that affect the citizenry.
I would add existential fears to that.
How does one reconcile with a mindset perpetually at fear of the other–enough to support the same leader indefinitely (and cynically so), to avoid the perceived danger of appearing divided and weak before the enemy?
Is it even possible to work with an existing system that uses fear of your fellow citizens as political currency?
Note: From my experience, elections within political parties for leaders are done by consensus. Otherwise, the current leader is re-elected. It does not matter how fair and convoluted the election laws are, the end result is to bring back old faces, and in few instances “a la Poutine and his side kick”… I was amazed lately that one of the oldest and most historic political parties re-elected its 95 year-old leader…
How Globalization can function adequately for the poorer countries?
Globalization is functioning according unilateral “rules of the games” in international institutions. Joseph Stieglitz, Nobel Prize for economics, had written a book in 2002 “The great disillusion” where he critiques the function and ideology of the international institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. I have already published reviews in two parts of the book.
This post focuses on Stiglitz’s recommendations for the international institutions (supposed to be public institutions) to reform in order to give a chance for Globalization to effectively comes to the rescue of the developing States. Thus, in order for world economy and financial stability be the norm then, three urgent reforms are needed.
First, the international institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization have to focus on collective global problems that require collective participation. For example, when global market economy is not running satisfactorily; when one State harms others and gets away with it (no indemnization procedures) then there are over production of certain commodities and under production of others. We have to tackle defense spending that does not generate any public benefits.
For example, public education sectors must be financed by international institutions since private sectors have failed to consider that urgent facet in states’ economy. For example, we have the environment, oceans, atmosphere, CO2 emissions and the other harmful gases, sanitary challenges and discharges, clean water sources, diffusion of contagious diseases, famine, and natural calamities are becoming global problems that require global resolutions and cooperation. All the global problems are interrelated: poverty leads to degraded environment and deforestation which in return increases poverty. There are financial interventions that are beneficial locally in reducing local pollution.
Second, the mode of governance such as control, management, decision-making and administration of international institutions has to be drastically reformed. The economic and financial interests of developed States have established unilateral set of rules and regulations on how to be applied globally without any serious input from the concerned parties in the developing countries. Developing States were targeted for hegemony behaviors. For example, in the IMF administration it is the finance ministers of the developed States and their central banks governors who are presiding as decision makers. In the World Trade Organization it is the ministers of commerce in the developed countries that run the show: they have particular perspective in matters of global trade. Who has the right of vote in these international institutions? The poor States and the workers have no representatives in these institutions to offer pertinent alternative feedback as to their difficult situations. The voting rules and representation around the table of decision makers have to be reformed drastically. The fact is that the IMF is rich because it is the developing countries that are reimbursing their debts at high interest rates.
At least, reforms in the structures of official direction in the IMF and WB can help in the short-term. For example, African delegates should be allowed to participate and be listened to even if they still cannot vote. Participation in meetings can aid the developing State representatives gather pertinent information and intelligence on world problems may partially fill the gap in intelligence dissemination. The IMF and WB should invest in developing “think tanks” institutions in the developing countries in order for their representative to be at par with ongoing discussions.
Third, transparency within the international institutions administrations have to be made public since they are public. Public pressures should be directed toward greater transparency in management and decision processes; on time data should be available for the concerned parties and not only for the multinationals and the developed State governments. There is urgent need to open the working environment to independent and free press and researchers of developing countries. Transparency is best catalyst to encouraging democratic tendencies in developing States and fair availability of information in a timely fashion.
Thus, favoritism in behavior and focus on the interests of the richer States must be examined and expressed by the public before conditions escalate to global problems. As deliberations in international institutions become accessed directly to larger audiences, instead of being held in closed chambers, then the environmental challenges and the interests of the poorer sections in world societies will be heard and discussed openly. The current decision processes are not critiqued and analyzed by the public on a timely manner: it is generally too late to critique wrong decisions before they are applied. Public access to timely information and intelligence would pressure the IMF and WB to reconsider their debatable economic assumptions and ideology; so far, what is decided is restricted on “what is good to the financial institutions”.
Mass protests in World Forums were mainly targeting the secrecy and opacity of the decision processes. So far, the disseminated information by the current structures of the international institutions is viewed with great suspicion by the poor States; so far, reforms were lukewarm and basically the kind of talked intent for reforms but not effective in practice.
Adonis Diaries 