Sfeir's List: Dead on Arrival

Lebanon needs a new president by November 24, 10 days from now. The country is torn apart by an unprecedented constitutional crisis. The constitution stipulates that, without a president-elect with 10 days to go, parliament meets immediately and elects.

Who cares? We are 8 days from the last of Incompetent-Traitor-in-Chief Emile Lahoud and Speaker Berri has called for a Nov 21 election. And no one is even protesting the dangerous closeness of that date to a potential power vacuum.

After months of abusing/misinterpreting the constitution, of exhausting the Lebanese people with empty moves and rhetoric, the end is finally near. The solution? Peggy Sue Sfeir, prodded by class hunk Kouchner, is going to pass a note to Mary Lou Berri and to Mimsy Hariri during gym.

The note will have the names of all the cool dudes for president. Kouchner wanted only one name in order to bring the game to an end. But Peggy Sue Sfeir, that tease, wants 5 or 6 or even 9.

The idea is that then Mary Lou and Mimsy will pick the hunkiest 2 on the list and that the high school will elect one of them on November 21.

I don’t understand the point of the whole exercise. I mean Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir has said all along: just elect someone, anyone. Now they all want Sfeir’s imprimatur on the choice. Kouchner told Sfeir that Berri would not call parliament if Sfeir did not produce names. So Sfeir, who according to reports does not want to pick the one guy, will give several names. Duh!

We all know that Aoun and Harb and Nassib Lahoud will be on the list, plus another few a la Demianos Qattar, Joseph Torbey etc…

It’s obvious that when Hariri and Berri get the list Harb, Nassib Lahoud and Aoun will be thrown out even before the coffee guy shows up. The other names are all acceptable to Sfeir. So what’s the point? That everyone can breathe that, whomever the president is, Sfeir approves, as do Berri and Hariri. They tortured the country for over 6 months for this?

OK, the Sfeir approval means some Christian cover. Hariri provides Sunni cover, but does Berri provide anything? Syrian cover? If he had Syrian cover we would not be here and he surely cannot provide Shia/Shiite cover without Hezbollah. I am not sure what is being solved by this charade.

Reading quickly in An-Nahar, I saw a glimmer of good news. The headline said Sfeir would insist on secrecy. Silly me, I thought he was referring to the secrecy of the ballot (another constitutional rule always trashed). That would have provided some pressure to uphold a very useful part of the law. But NOOOOO, I was quickly disappointed. Peggy Sue Sfeir wants the LIST of effing candidates to remain secret. Why? Another mystery. Hell, give or take a name, all of Lebanon already knows that stupid list.

With 8 days to Armageddon these people are still worried about the silliest of stuff. They are all hopeless. Go ahead your Eminence, keep the list secret, and the election date secret, and the name of the new president secret.

Finally, as I ready to post and less than 24 hours after the lousy new non-idea was floated, it would appear that it’s already dead.