BEIRUT —
Lebanese law student Charbel Chaaya spent the election campaign distributing
flyers in
Beirut and trying to convince his parents to vote for independents to
shake the grip of established parties.
اضافة اعلان
The 21-year-old
activist is one of many young voters who went against their parents’ political
views and helped propel at least 13 independents to parliament last week for
the first time in decades. “My parents think I’m too idealistic, that this
country will never change,” he said, adding that his father voted for a
traditional Christian party, the
Lebanese Forces. “There is a generational
gap,” Chaaya said. “Our generation knows that sectarian and traditional
politics simply don’t work anymore.”
Chaaya is part of a new generation seeking a
progressive approach to politics, blaming established parties dating from
Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war for an economic meltdown that has pushed
thousands to flee the country. This has widened a generational gap between
young people voting for change and an older generation often attached to civil
war-era parties.
The Iran-backed
Shiite Hezbollah group and its allies fell just short of the 65 seats needed to
control the 128-seat parliament, losing their clear-cut majority. This time,
the May 15 polls brought in a record number of independents to parliament,
totaling a small but significant tenth of the assembly.
‘Different language’
Chaaya headed his university’s secular club, one of dozens of political
groups bringing together young supporters of a mass protest movement that began
in October 2019. In his Chouf-Aley district, southeast of Beirut, voters ousted
Hezbollah ally Talal Arslan in favor of independent newcomer Mark Daou, a
university lecturer and advertising professional.
A massive number
of those campaigning for his list were young people in their twenties, Daou
said. “We speak a different language than the traditional parties, that’s why
people like us,” said Daou. “We don’t speak in sectarian terms.”
Lebanon shares
power among its 18 recognized religious communities, and politics are often
treated as a family business. This was a clear break from voting patterns in
Lebanon, where each community usually supports politicians from their own
religious sect.
Polling expert
Rabih Haber of Statistics
Lebanon said that while voter data could not be
broken down by age, on social media young people seemed to express far greater
support for independent candidates than established parties.
Newly-elected
independent MP Elias Jarade, a 54-year-old Harvard-educated ophthalmologist,
said most voters who came up to him were young people from different political
backgrounds. “All those who came to our tents and said they voted for us were
young men and women, from different regions, religions and political
backgrounds,” Jarade said. He was one of two independent MPs who snatched seats
from allies of the powerful
Hezbollah in its south Lebanon strongholds.
The independent
MPs are mostly university professors and respected professionals who entered
politics after the 2019 mass protests.
‘Space to have a conversation’
Karl, a 30-year-old Beirut
resident, went against his parents’ wishes and voted for an independent in the
country’s south, after growing disillusioned with the Christian Free Patriotic
Movement of
President Michel Aoun, a Hezbollah ally. Karl, asking that only his
first name be used, said that there is a trend of younger people voting for
independents, despite their limited gains in the south. “At the same time the
older generation is also transmitting its own war trauma to their children,” he
said.
On his way to vote in his hometown, Karl passed by
the southern town of Ghazieh, where he saw children chanting slogans and
bearing flags for Hezbollah and its ally the
Shiite Amal movement. The scene
was emblematic of the tight hold the two groups have in south Lebanon, where
independents are often threatened and intimidated, according to observers and
rights groups.
Sami, 21,
who also asked for his first name to be used, said he had failed to dissuade
his parents from voting for Hezbollah and Amal. “I thought I had convinced
my mother, but in the end there is always something that pulls her back to her
beliefs,” he said, a common complaint among young voters AFP spoke to. But Sami
said he was cautiously optimistic about the independents’ modest
victory in the south. “Our region was monochrome, there was no space for
debate on alternatives to these parties,” Sami said. “This opened up, at least, some space to have a
conversation.”
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