Will Suleiman’s presidency be another lost leadership opportunity in Lebanon?
By Michael Kouly
Time is ticking. President Michel Suleiman has to make up his mind soon on whether he wants to be remembered as just another Lebanese politician or as a president of historic proportions.
Views are now split among Leadership experts on the performance of Suleiman who took office more than a year ago. Some scholars are praising his interventions and others are saying that he could have done much better.
The many who praise the president, highlight the following as his achievements:
- Commanded local and international respect for his values and character
- Reinstated the position and image of the office of the presidency as a symbol of the country’s structure of formal authority
- Capitalized well on the international support for Beirut by visiting many countries to present Lebanon to the world as a recovering rather than a failed state
- Understood the balance of power inside and outside Lebanon and maintained good relations with all parties
- Earned the representation of most Lebanese as their head of state who cared about their diverse concerns and maintained economic and social stability
- Has been trying hard to get the rival factions of the country to talk to each other and reach a minimal agreement on the fundamental principles that should govern their living together
- Received appreciation as a voice of wisdom and moderation in a country known for political recklessness
Suleiman has admirably done the above with his little constitutional power. People close to him speak of his frustration for not being able to do more because of the constraints of his authority.
Critics, however, say further progress could have been achieved since Suleiman was elected had he taken advantage of other sources of strength available to him, beyond the limits of the constitution, particularly the ability to connect with the nation directly and build political capital with the public because of the power of attention that people and the media give to the president. They believe Suleiman is dealing with an extraordinary situation, where new problem-solving approaches and creative ideas are needed, with a conventional way of thinking that has been for decades repeatedly tried and failed. They fear that his six-year term will be yet another missed opportunity to exercise leadership in his traumatized country.
What is wrong with Lebanon?
Lebanon is dysfunctional mainly because it is made of heterogeneous rival factions that distrust each other due to their deep-rooted bloody common history and because of their contradictory beliefs about the identity, future, values and priorities of the country. Such a severe and acute structural fault cannot be fixed by just refining the process of governing the state like changing the electoral process, the composition of the cabinet, the distribution of power among the factions or even a new constitution (20 years after the Taif constitution, the same core problems still exist). All these processes are extremely important and should be carefully worked out because they provide a holding environment to society but they remain short term and temporary technical fixes that will generate more problems if the mindset of the Lebanese is not changed. The malfunctioning process of governance and the dominant impact of foreign interventions are dangerous but they are symptoms and not the root issues.
It is therefore unfortunate that much of the efforts made so far, including that of the president, are about dealing with the symptoms rather than the core diseases. It is sad that the past years have been wasted without significant progress by finding commonly agreeable answers to basic questions like: What does it mean to be Lebanese? Do the Lebanese really want to live together? Are they prepared to do the necessary sacrifices to live together in peace? In fact, not only much of the real issues have been avoided for generations but matters have become worse. The country that was divided religiously is now also infested with sectarian conflicts, the government is paralyzed, public and foreign debt is huge, armed forces are incapable of imposing order and are less militarized than some of the local factions while allegiance to external powers is dominant.
Successful elections?
Even the last parliamentary elections that were hailed as a success, they were held simply because the Lebanese factions (and their foreign sponsors) allowed them to happen. It is distressing that the voting greatly added to the massively painful collective memory of the Lebanese because the election campaigns used fear, anger, hatred, vengeance and distrust to mobilize people, making their rifts deeper. Watching people carrying their semi-conscious old and disabled parents and grandparents to voting stations to vote against their rival fellow citizens graphically demonstrated the level of mutual distrust among the Lebanese who often clash violently at the slightest triggers.
Who can clear the mess?
Of course it is unfair and naïve to believe that the burden of cleaning all this mess lies on the shoulders of the president or any single party alone. The responsibility is on all the Lebanese. It would be almost impossible for anybody, especially a constitutionally marginalized president, to confront alone the rotten political and sectarian establishments of power that are feeding off the bleeding wounds of their country.
The question is then what could president Suleiman do with such baggage? The answer is to totally “change the game” by focusing directly on the people, the public, where the heart of the problem and the solution lies. That is what Gandhi, Mandela and Martin Luther King did. They helped their communities face their hard realities and change the mindsets that caused their dilemmas. Without much authority, they were the voice that raised the level of awareness and consciousness in their societies. This, certainly, is not an invitation to copy Napoleon the army general, Chavez the populist, Chairman Mao Zedong the ideologist or previous forms of Lebanese political experiences that led to the creation of parties that revolve around individual charismatic figures. This is a call for Suleiman to spend his remaining five years of presidential term using the vastly unexplored moral power of the presidency to actively instill new values in the Lebanese people, values that most Lebanese can agree upon, so that enough common ground is built in the nation and bridges of trust are extended among its divided people.
Some may argue that this approach is dreamy, impractical and that the warlords of the country would torpedo attempts to diminish their power of mobilizing their crowds to serve their ideologies or personal agendas or that the president does not have the tools to create the needed “movement of civic and national awareness” in the country. But then again, what is the alternative? Actuality even the politicians are saying that the current political activity will at best lead to just a temporary space of calm. Why? Because the politicians are following the same futile behaviors and problem-solving thinking that has been practiced in the country for decades: crises management, self-serving agendas, superficial process-related technical fixes and total codependence on foreign interventions (precisely as they are doing now to form a new government). This is exactly Einstein’s definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Choices?
The president has two choices: 1- Either to just become the president, of process, protocol, neutrality and political buffer zones. Or, 2- To emerge, also, as the president of civic awareness and of a new set of national values. Observers believe that people are thirsty for the second role because they are fed up with the petty political practices that have been poisoning their lives for years. They are ready for a leader who offers a different definition of leadership of historic proportion, a president of the people who leads from a clean heart and appeals to their good nature. The Lebanese are eager for an authentic, clear and simple message of hope that they can solve their problems by themselves and rise into prosperity and that it is possible for people of different histories to have a good common future in a state of mutual cooperation rather than of mutual distraction. The great advantage with the second choice is that Suleiman does not need constitutional powers to play this role because his has the most valuable asset that leadership demands – the attention of the people. He also has a substantial but greatly unutilized community of the intellectual elites and of the cadre of highly talented and committed activists – the vivid group of Lebanese civil society that he could easily mobilize in the service of a convincing national cause.
Is there any other way?
Practically speaking, leadership scholars recommend that the president, without ignoring at all his constitutional and political obligations, start interacting much more actively with the civil society, the elites and with the masses at festivals, conferences, churches, mosques as well as at sports, arts, scouting, youth and cultural activities and anywhere he can spread his message of hope and change. It is a vastly different style from his current classic approach because it involves spending more time with the people in the field than with politicians at his palace, but there is no other way if he wants to create impact and build his political capital. He can form a special team around him to advise him on interventions to preach and demonstrate a message of civic values, a simple national message (cleverly constructed from the key messages of all the local parties) that he can tirelessly repeat everyday over the next five years at every opportunity until it settles in the subconscious mind of his people. A message such as: Lebanon a country of ethics free from corruption; a sovereign and independent state that will defend its territory and resist any aggression; a nation where liberties and diversity are prime assets not liabilities; what brings Lebanese together is far bigger than what sets them apart…
Suleiman has had a year to reflect on the role that he has been playing so far, on its actual impact on dealing with the core issues and on the prospects of his presidential term if he continues to confine himself to his current approach. Trying to acquire more power in the government will for sure be helpful but in the long term the benefits are mainly tactical. The real working field is the people. It is where the illnesses and real remedies are. Can the president adapt his style to connect with the people directly? Can he effectively pass on to them his much-respected values, insights and wisdom? Can he, while still performing his presidential role of governance, turn the elites and civil society into his army of activists and national catalysts? Can he become to be known in history as the president who helped transform the way Lebanese think about themselves, each other and their country? Will he just be the president of institutional process or will he rather be the father of a public movement of civil and national consciousness? The opportunity is available for time to say “Yes He Can” and for the coming generations to say “Yes He Did.”
For comments: Michael.Kouly@post.Harvard.edu
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