Beirut, March 02: March 14’s decision not to participate in a government borne out of what it termed a Hezbollah-led “coup” has saddled the alliance with a number of imposing challenges, but the boycott may also have thrown the bloc several opportunities it didn’t enjoy while in power, analysts told The Daily Star Tuesday.
Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace in Beirut, said that while its new role as opposition would be taxing, March 14 was now free to both scrutinize the future Cabinet and consolidate its own political priorities.
“It is a bit of a loss but we are in a time when there are more surprises than predictabilities. They are going back to basics, which enables them to reconnect with their base,” Salem said.
March 14 said Sunday that it would play no part in Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati’s fetal government unless he was able to provide two crucial guarantees: Lebanese support for the U.N.-backed investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and an amnesty on non-state arms.
Salem said the bloc’s main priority was to keep the Special Tribunal for Lebanon “alive in public opinion.”
Elias Muhanna, author of the Lebanese political blog Qifa Nabki, said that caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s aim to safeguard national support for the tribunal could even benefit from his ousting from power.
“In a way, Hariri is in a stronger position [to support the tribunal] without pretending he has to walk a line. Now he can step back and play the role of national leader without having to look like he is bowing to [March 8] pressure,” he said. “He couldn’t have done that if he was still in the Serail.”
The alliance has called for its supporters to stage large-scale demonstrations in the run up to the sixth anniversary of the Cedar Revolution, which forced the withdrawal of Syrian troops after three decades on Lebanese soil.
“The aim is to have as large a gathering as possible to claim that even though they have lost the majority, they still have a massive following,” Salem said.
“They may also be trying to catch the wave of what is happening in the region,” he added, in reference to popular uprisings which have rocked much of the Arab world throughout 2011 thus far.
He added that Mikati’s Cabinet was unlikely to be formed before the protests occurred, in order to avoid demonstrations appearing to be aimed “exclusively against the government.”
Free Patriotic Movement MP and political science professor at the American University of Beirut Farid al-Khazen indicated that the new March 8 parliamentary majority was unlikely to take much notice of popular demonstrations.
He said March 14 would be best to focus efforts on ensuring Mikati’s Cabinet is held accountable for its actions and honor the international commitments Lebanon has made, such as support for the tribunal and UN Security Council resolutions outlawing contraband weapons.
“This is an opposition that will seek to target the majority and compete with them,” he said.
“The questions that they are raising are the same as those which they have had to deal with in government but they did not force any of these issues.”
Khazen also dismissed the idea that Sunni voters would feel betrayed by the ousting of Hariri. “This move [by March 8] is not targeted against the Sunni community. This is purely a case of majority versus opposition,” he said.
Muhanna said that while Hariri’s current position meant that “the main representative of the Sunnis is not going to be represented in the Cabinet,” diminished Sunni participation was unlikely to mirror events of November 2006, when Amal Movement and Hezbollah’s withdrawal from Cabinet left Lebanon’s Shiite voters without government representation.
One of March 14’s principal demands – that Hezbollah relinquish its arsenal – will be particularly difficult to remedy, according to Muhanna.
While the majority of Lebanese supported an amnesty on Hezbollah arms other than those needed to resist Israeli aggression, “the problem is that [March 14] is just not very clear about what this means,” Muhanna said.
“[Hariri] really should be saying what everyone is thinking: That most people who are against Hezbollah are not worried about being shot by a Hezbollah sniper, but are worried about some larger Iranian agenda.”
He added that a lack of sufficiently concise political rhetoric had held back previous March 14 calls for Hezbollah to lay down its arms.
The coalition needed to be more precise over what it wanted from Hezbollah, while safeguarding Lebanon’s right to maintain a resistance, Muhanna said.
“If you say you are against the resistance, people start to call you a traitor,” he added.
March 14 in opposition may take some time for parties within the alliance to get used to, but analysts said the door remained open for the bloc’s return to power.
“Certainly this will not affect the 2013 [parliamentary] elections,” Khazen said. “They are far too far in the future.”
Salem added: “[March 14] lost this round and was not able to be in this government. But things are moving so fast that it can persevere and look for opportunities down the road.”
———Agencies