MPs Gone Wild

When Lebanese politicians speak, no one listens and it usually is one of three things:

-90% of the time it’s predictable and useless, typically it boils down to “it’s my opponents’ fault” or its variant “it’s the foreign meddlers’ fault”.

-6.2% of the time it’s about something useless because it is “secret”. They speak of, or threaten with, secret lists (recently Sfeir), or secret plans (now M14 and Abou Faour), or secret negotiations and documents (now Aoun). This would be farcical were it not readily swallowed whole by the politically dormant populace and by a comatose press.

The height of hilarity comes when a Lebanese pol threatens to unveil a “secret” if things don’t go right. Things never go right and no culprit is ever uncovered. French President Sarkozy seems to have caught the disease. He said a couple of days ago: elect a prez now or else France will name the obstructionists. Still waiting.

-The remaining 3.8% of the time, our despised politicians’ utterances are still useless (batting a hundred in that department) but now it’s because they make no sense whatsoever.

Here are two recent examples, one from each political camp, M8 and M14.

Aounist and Hezbo (M8) “partner” MP Ibrahim Kenaan:

[…]if legislators failed to reach consensus on a presidential candidate "we can still vote in parliament" irrespective of who wins or loses.
[...]
"At that point we could reach agreement and that would be great, and if we did not achieve an agreement lets go to parliament, and we might win or lose at parliament," he added.
[...]
"We are saying that we could, or could not, reach an agreement. If we did not reach an agreement we go to elections," Kenaan explained.

You, Kenaan, and your allies refuse to show up to elect. Your absence causes a (supposed) lack of quorum and the election has been stalled for months now, causing a political vacuum. Excuse me but are you still in Aoun’s party or have you switched sides overnight and forgot to tell us?

And if you speak for your party, then what was holding up the election before candidate Suleiman came to the fore?

What am I missing here guys?

From the M14 side, we get MP and uninspired aspirant prez Boutros Harb:

MP Butros Harb cautioned against a scheme to strip the presidency of its powers and partition Lebanon in order to naturalize Palestinian refugees.

Harb, in an interview with Naharnet, said the "issue is not that of amending the constitution or who is president. This is a mere phase in a scheme to partition Lebanon in order to enforce the naturalization of Palestinians in the future."

If you read the whole thing, Harb says that the state and the presidency are being weakened by the current stalemate. Fair enough, but nothing earth shattering there. Harb goes on to say (diplomatically) that the French screwed up. Interesting, but more details would be nice.

What does not make sense to me is the “Palestinian naturalization/implantation” statement above that, as usual, is left unexplained. No details, no elaboration.

Is Boutros Harb accusing Hezbollah and Aoun of favoring Palestinian naturalization? I don’t believe it and neither does Harb. Is it Syria? Syria has no interest in any kind of long-term solution and favors keeping the Palestinians in Lebanon as destitute and angry tools. Can’t be Syria.

That accusation used to be normally hurled by Lahoud and Hezbo AT M14 and at Saad Hariri in particular. Is Harb accusing his own ally here?

Or is Harb accusing the US and France of saying they want a strong state in Lebanon while working behind the scenes to destroy it?

What the hell is this presidential contender talking about? WHO is working toward that implantation? Israel? Then Israel is playing its own friends the US and France for fools?

I really don’t get. What are these people talking about?

Anyone with a clue, please enlighten me. I mean it.