Accountability: A “National Security Threat” to Lebanon’s Elites
▻http://www.lcps-lebanon.org/featuredArticle.php?id=54
For the last twenty-five years, successive Lebanese governments and the political elite have worked hard to undermine all shapes and forms of accountability in our political system. For one, they have crafted electoral districts in such a way that most seats are distributed by those in power rather without being subjected to any serious competition, hence rendering elections meaningless. As a consequence, the parliament has failed to exercise its two crucial roles: Legislating and oversight of the government. The judiciary has been largely subservient to political demands, including the recent Constitutional Council decision to rubber stamp the illegal extension of the parliament’s mandate. Oversight agencies which are awkwardly housed in the Presidency of the Council of Ministers remain understaffed and their disclosures of violations are left unheeded. Labor unions, which could have challenged the dominant sectarian discourse to highlight differences between the haves and the have nots, have been largely decimated since the early 1990s. The recent emergence of the Teachers’ Union in 2013 to spearhead a drive for public sector salary adjustment managed to incur the wrath of almost every main political party. This was aimed at ensuring the union does not succeed in changing the dominant political discourse from sectarian- to class-based. In brief, politicians have shielded the political system from any hint of accountability.