With the conclusion of the Lebanese parliamentary elections, a period of international conflict has ended, and a new one will begin. The 1960 election law, which divided the country into small districts tailored to the measure of religions and confessions, has turned every mukhtar into a world leader, to which superpowers pay great attention. Jeffrey Feltman, the US deputy assistant secretary of state, seeks the mukhtar's blessings. President Barack Obama himself warns about making him angry. President Ahmadinejad supports him. Benjamin Netanyahu is made angry by him. All of them threaten the Lebanese, all Lebanese, with revenge, if the election results do not turn out to be what they wish. Sectarianism was certainly present, with all of its attendant hatreds, to give legitimacy to each instance of regional or international intervention in the elections. To each instance of bribery or violation of law. To each incident of incitement that might lead to strife and bloodletting. Candidates engaged in every type of infraction. They turned the graves of martyrs and killers into ballot boxes. Each MP cast his vote for the dead, affirming his loyalty to them. Life, and social and political programs, are on hold. Only instinct led voters to the ballot boxes-graves. Fear was very much present, in force. Everyone was scared of everyone. The Maronites, according to their patriarch, are scared of losing the political entity called Lebanon and its “Arabism.” In other words, they are afraid of melting away in a sea of Islam. They are afraid of Iran and the system of rule known as wilayat al-faqih. The Sunnis are afraid of losing their privileges. Of Syria in its previous, present and future structure of power. Of the possibility of becoming a minority in the country where they were the majority a short time ago. The Shiites, who are strong with their weapons and their resistance, are frightened of Israel, and of being re-marginalized in a Sunni-Maronite alliance. For this reason, they cling to their weapons more strongly, in the belief that successive governments have ignored their regions and left them to be occupied, until they ejected the occupation with these weapons and liberated their villages and towns in the south. Only these weapons will force the state to respect the rights of the Shiites. The Druze are led by a zaim who is supposedly the smartest of Lebanese politicians and the one most able to read changes in regional and international politics. The Druze are afraid of “the bad people,” as the same leader called them. They are afraid of their Sunni allies and of an American-Syrian rapprochement. And of the weapons and numbers of the Shiites, and how they are purchasing land in Druze regions. All of this fear was summoned up in the election propaganda; it was said to the “free, democratic” Lebanese, who had exercised their democracy for more than 60 years, “Go to this grave-ballot box, and vote with complete freedom. The results came in proportion to this fear. Whoever scared the voters the most, received the most seats. However, the democratic game did not end there. Now, the time has come to elect a speaker of Parliament, select the prime minister, draft the government's policy statement, and discuss the future of the weapons of the resistance. All of this, as we know, is the subject of dispute and conflict, in which region and international dimensions are more able to settle things. Israel did not miss its chance, either. It suggested a version of the government's policy statement. Shimon Peres affirmed that the elections did not change anything. He repeated what some Lebanese had said. Peres said that Hezbollah remains “a state within a state, and an army within an army, obstructing Lebanon's economic progress.” The Foreign Ministry asked the next government to prevent Hezbollah from attacking Israeli settlements. If Israel preceded everyone else in setting down its demands of the new Lebanese government, the rest will not waste much time in setting down their conditions, to facilitate the consultations over selecting a prime minister. Seeing some Lebanese frighten each other will be the optimal means to enforce these conditions. The free and non-fair elections deepened sectarianism; they rendered the fear even more deeply-rooted and legitimized external intervention. Fear and corruption won out, and democracy was defeated in its only home in the Arab world.
