A dysfunctional political system and its actors

The current Lebanon’s political system is based on the Taif agreement (1989). The agreement enshrines the long established sect-based political system, where political authority is grounded based on the religious affiliation of the political leaders down to public servants.

Within the mosaic of 18 officially recognized confessions, Muslim Sunnis, Muslim Shiites, Christians of various churches and Druze are the main players. 

The current politicians are the same or direct descendants of the Lebanese Civil war era’s sectarian warlords who still occupy positions, taking advantage of amnesty for their war crimes and the requirement of “consent” imposed by the Taif agreement. Most devastating to the country, they have been persisting in their practices of corruption and their allegiances to foreign powers, which splits the small state into two camps: One pro-Iranian & Syrian Shiism (Hezbollah with part of the Christians) versus a second pro-west and Saudi & West camp (Sunnis with other Christians). Druze position jumps, to their convenience, from one camp to the other.

Following the civil war, which ended in 1990, the system has been based essentially on thIs conflicting and especially corrupted system, splitting of the country’s resources, mostly coming from devastatingly accumulated debts. This obsolete system enables the same errors and prohibits progress.