Municipal elections in South Lebanon

Independent coverage of municipal elections in South Lebanon from Hibr.

Change Lebanon can believe in?

The locale had all the feeling of a youth hostel or a Bohemian coffee shop - yellow walls, pastels, a Buddha mask on the wall, red couches, mismatched chairs, low lighting to give the imperfections perfect character. And youth - the buzz, the desperate energy of a generation longing for change.

As an American, I can't say the gathering was unlike those during the early Obama campaign, when young Americans gathered in places not unlike Club 43 in Gemeyzeh with a tenacious grip on hope and an insatiable thirst for change.

Skin was shiny, the point just before sweat, the sticky air of Beirut invading the crowded room, and impromptu fans of paper pushed the only air around. Nobody minded the heat, for this was a moment. This was freedom. This was an opportunity for voices to be heard by a representative of their government. A question answered, a dozen more hands, an endless supply of questions asked not for answers, but just to be heard, hands reaching to the fruits of humanity, a hunger for a real country, a real democracy, a real freedom.

Ziad Baroud is not Barack Obama. But what he brings to the youth of this country is the same, a ripple in the sea of failed policies of the establishment. As Minister of Interior in charge of elections and security, he has already brought about real reform - reform to electoral laws, reform to the way the security forces function, and reform to the attitudes of a new generation. Perhaps the last is the most important.

Minister Baroud was at Club 43 to talk about electoral reform as part of the Naam Lil Hiwar weekly dialogue series that takes place in various venues every Monday in Beirut. Naam lil hiwar means "Yes to dialogue" in Arabic. The organization believes:

We, as citizens have a role and responsibility, to actively participate in setting and defining the citizenship attitudes and democratic behavior, and in the creation of the governance system we want for our country...

Na-am Lil Hiwar has successfully created an open space for dialogue by holding Hiwar sessions in Beirut for over two years and tackling a wide spectrum of political, social, and cultural issues.

Open spaces for dialogue in different regions of Lebanon - where youth can discuss a wide spectrum of political, social, and cultural issues - are needed as a communication channel.

Naam Lil Hiwar communicates the times and places of its dialogue sessions through its group page on Facebook. Thus far, the group has 403 members and has held 74 past events.

The energy in the room last week as the Minister spoke was electrifying. There is nothing more inspiring than watching a new generation push to better their country, nothing more fundamental to democracy than public participation at the grassroots level, nothing more promising for the future than seeing the political will for change.

Spotlight: Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections

This interview of our spotlight series is with Ziad Abdelsamad of Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE), an organization tasked with observing the June 7, 2009 parliamentary elections for Lebanon.

About election operations for 2009

LADE monitored the elections according to the article 20 of the elections law 25/2008 which says that “Civil Society has the right to monitor and to observe the elections.” This was the first time since its establishment in 1996 that LADE was officially accredited by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

LADE launched the operation on April 2, 2009 during a press conference announcing the readiness to start monitoring the campaigns, including public administration organizing the elections, the candidates and their obedience to the law and the norms, media according to chapter three of the law, and voters’ behaviors.

During this period, LADE issued three reports describing the process and giving a general analysis and overview on the whole operation including severe violations. It is worth noting that LADE documented and registered more than 240 violations - 45 were analyzed, verified and published.

LADE also opened 24 district offices and recruited 45 district coordinators and assistants. The aim of this national network was to establish direct contacts with the local communities, candidates and local authorities. In addition, LADE aimed to reach out to volunteers and to train them through these offices. Its initial target was to recruit 3000 independent volunteers and to train them on the law, methodologies, and techniques of observations.

LADE managed to recruit and to train 3200 volunteers by organizing more than 380 training workshops and to assign among them 2200 volunteer observers.

It is worth noting that LADE used the SMS technique for the first time in the region.

DL: What did your elections observers do? How were they
distributed across the country?

LADE: All volunteer observers were monitoring the election process to ensure the rule of law, and documenting all violations observed. As mentioned above, the targets were the administration, the candidates and their supporters, the media and the voters. Two types of observers were employed on E-day: mobile monitors (1700) whose job was to observe the elections in the polling stations and in their surrounding areas. They had to document all violations and immediately report by SMS the incidents to the central database operational room. The database analysts then analyzed the information and followed up on the critical incidents. As necessary, LADE did report to the Ministry of Interior through its volunteer present inside this public bureau.

The other type of observers were the fixed observers. 400 fixed observer who constituted a representative statistical sample, were present persistently throughout the electoral process duration in the polling stations. Their job was to provide a certain set of data at intervals during the day, from one particular polling station, where they were stationed from opening at 7 am to the end of counting. This representative statistical sample permitted LADE to form projections about the electoral process as a whole. (Why do we go back to critical incidents after talking about fixed observers?)

To assure the right of every citizen to vote, observers were distributed across the Lebanese regions mainly according to their electoral districts. Observers were organized into groups three and rotated then around predetermined three to five polling stations each, depending on factors such as the geographical size of the electoral district and the intensity of the electoral battle.

On the other hand, fixed observers were deployed in encoded and determined polling stations were carefully selected according to preset criteria.

DL: Did observers have previous experience in observing elections? What was the training like prior to Election Day?

LADE: Since elections took place on one day according to the new law, monitoring was made on a much larger scale while comparing it to previous years. LADE was able to recruit around 2500 volunteers, although the initial target was 3000 volunteers. Many of the volunteers monitored in previous elections. Thus, many new volunteers had no previous experience in election observation.

All volunteers, however, had to attend three workshops. The first workshop introduced participants to the new electoral law, highlighted the reforms that made it into this draft and re-enforced observers’ knowledge of the law generally, and those articles that directly affect the monitoring process.

The second workshop trained participants on the monitoring methodology as a whole, and the tools to be used by observers for monitoring electoral campaigns pre-election day (campaign spending and finance, campaign ads and media, etc.) as well as on E-day.

The third workshop explained the deployment strategy, and observers were thoroughly trained on the tools to be used in documenting violations on E-Day, most especially the new SMS technology, which was being employed for the first time in election observation in the Middle East.

DL: An article in The Daily Star stated that LADE had over 2500 volunteers to observe the elections and half of them were university students. How did these students come to volunteer? Did you recruit them from university campuses? Did they volunteer themselves? Did volunteers come from one particular university over another?

LADE: In order to be able to mobilize 3000 volunteer observers, LADE designated a recruitment officer. The recruitment strategy adopted and implemented was namely based on four pillars: 1) recruitment events or seminars held in universities; at the end of which application forms were available for interested participants; 2) recruitment through partner NGOs, who are members of the Lebanese Coalition for the Observation of Elections (CLOE); 3) recruitment through the 24 district offices covering all the electoral districts; 4) through the website, by filling an online application form.

Through this strategy, LADE was able to mobilize more than a thousand university students to volunteer to monitor the elections.

Moreover, CLOE, which includes 55 NGOs and 8 universities played an important role in recruiting and training, as they all hosted recruitment events for LADE or volunteered their premises for training workshops.

DL: Did volunteers tend to have experience living or visiting the US or Europe that may have contributed to their interest in election observation?

LADE: LADE started working since 1996. It observed 4 parliamentary elections (1996, 2000, 2005, and 2009) in addition to two partial elections 2002 (in north Metn) and 2007 (in north Metn and Beirut) and two municipal elections (1998 and 2004) in addition to one partial election in 2002, (that took place after the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation form the Lebanese occupied territories).

In all these periods, LADE used to mobilize number of Lebanese volunteering, including a few of the non-residents, but the large majority of the volunteers are resident Lebanese most of them had little to no experience traveling or living abroad.

However, LADE used the exchange programs with many of its partners in order to compile experiences and to improve the performance, many of LADEs members participated in observation teams abroad thanks to these programs. This helped in elaborating and developing new methodologies and efficient strategies.

DL: Could you talk a little about youth involvement in politics in general? Is there a lot of youth activism? Do you see a change in involvement in this generation compared to the last? Do youth volunteer for particular party campaigns, or is activism more along the lines of reform in general?

LADE: Youth play a major role among civil society organizations, including campaigns that Lebanon witnessed recently. This reflects a clear evolution in the work of CSOs in different cases and shows the readiness of the youth.

It is worth noting that young peoples’ concerns were not in a single campaign but one should mention that attention was with greater response to the campaign for electoral reforms. This emerged clearly in the “Civil Campaign for Electoral Reforms” (CCER), which is a campaign launched by LADE and many other CSOs to meet the reform efforts of the Lebanese government in 2006. Lowering the voting age was one of the main principles adopted by CCER. Although this reform did not pass in the current law, the process that needs a constitutional amendment has started and will be most probably implemented during the next municipal elections in 2010.

Young people are involved in other campaigns such the campaign for a new citizenship law, the campaign for a new civil code in Lebanon, beside many others.

DL: What lessons did you learn from the 2009 election observation experience? Is there anything that LADE will do differently next time around?

LADE: Many lessons LADE learned from this experience, since a new methodology was implemented for the first time according to the new reforms included in the law:

• It was the first time that LADE monitored the elections in one day in all the country; this means that the deployment strategy should take into consideration the ability to cover all the district in one day.
• Then it was the first time that LADE monitored the elections with an explicit recognition of its role in the law (according to the article 20). This led to the elaboration of a different strategy for coordination with the governmental and public organizers, the voters and candidates.
• It was the first time the law includes ceiling for campaign spending and norms for media and advertising; consequently LADE monitored the campaigns led by the candidates starting two months prior to the E-day.

According to all the above mentioned, LADE learned a lot from this experience and will take into consideration a lot of the lessons learned and success stories. A comprehensive evaluation process is undergoing and a lot of recommendations should be adopted in order to improve the performance of the association.

Safadi Foundation USA thanks Mr. Abdelsamad for answering our questions and congratulates LADE for a job well done.

Twynicism - Young Lebanese and the Politics of Change

As the world watches events unfolding in Iran through social media due to government crackdown on traditional means of communication, we are coming to understand the impact new technology like Twitter and Facebook can have on world events. While not having as much direct impact on elections in Lebanon, these new media tools did play a role in the dialogue leading up to the elections.

One of the prevalent sentiments about the Lebanese election campaigns can be summed up by a Twitter persona who goes by @fulla_. Fulla, as you may know, is the Muslim version of Barbie, an abaya-clad, hijab covered plastic toy. Fulla claimed to be running for a parliamentary seat, but true to the spirit of the competitive elections, she had been slandered by her opponents, who alleged they had a compromising video tape of her, a claim she categorically denied.

Such is the cynicism of young Lebanese. This is a generation who grew up post-Ta'if, a generation raised in cyberspace, where borders don't exist and governments often can't keep up with those who want change. So they use new media to express their cynicism, this new generation who won't accept the status quo of bickering and fighting and deadlock and death.

Fulla crafted a parody of the Lebanese political process in 140 character installments. Other Lebanese Twitterers wrote:

@kheleil: Anyone voted Donald Duck?

@habibh: Probably only dude on a billboard who is not running for elections. [with photo of Marlboro man billboard]

The cynicism spills into the blogsphere as well. Maya Zankoul is an online cartoonist who recently mocked the use of scantily clad women in political advertising, political phone harassment, and odd campaign slogans. Qifa Nabki created a Lebanese election bracket in the style of an NCAA tournament bracket. For a Better Lebanon went Monty Python and the cynicism is evident even as he "gloats" over a victory for the "lesser of two evils."

Individuals are not the only ones to use sarcasm and satire in their political discourse. Youth for Tolerance, a non-profit organization that works with people aged 16-22 on issues of conflict resolution, created two online games, one in which a player "whacks a politician" and the other in which a player must whitewash sheep before they climb aboard a March 14 or March 8 bus, their colors matching the various sectoral hues.

But with cynicism comes hope. According to an article in The Daily Star, the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE) said that of more than 2500 election observers, over half were university students. Likewise, Lebanese Transparency Association (LTA) said 80% of their election observers were university students. Young Lebanese want real democracy with transparency, accountability, and competitive races rather than assigned seats in parliament. Their involvement in the democratic process is a sign that there is a political will to move on from the old divisions and hatreds, and political will is the main ingredient in any recipe for change.

Fulla claimed she won her seat, saying, "Change, here it comes." When asked by a follower what she meant by change, she replied:

Sectarian system into the dustbin of history, plant flowers all over, exile warlords to Cedar Island, promote plastic arts. Requests?

Follow SafadiUSA on Twitter.