Think the US Presidential Election is Strange? Consider Lebanon After the ‘Aoun-Hariri Deal

Imagine if you will a world in which Donald Trump chose Elizabeth Warren as his running mate, or Hillary Clinton chose, say, David Duke, and these were considered breakthroughs. You have stepped through a gate into another dimension, a dimension known as (theme music) the Lebanon Zone.

Hariri (left) and ‘Aoun

Anyone who has followed the roller-coaster ride of Lebanese politics since the end of the civil war  and somehow retained their sanity will be familiar with the fact that over the decades the factional leaders (zu‘ama) rarely change, except when one dies, and even then the last name stays the same. But the factions shift alliances every few years. In 1990-91 General Michel ‘Aoun was the sworn enemy of Syria; when he returned after years in exile he was Syria's friend, and is now Hizbullah's favorite Maronite. While his chameleon-like shifts are nowhere near as volatile and frequent as Walid Jumblatt's, he has frequently realigned himself.

The recent announcement by Sa‘d Hariri, the former Prime Minister whose late father's assassination has been blamed on Hizbullah, announced that he was endorsing ‘Aoun for the Lebanese Presidency, which has been vacant since 2014, during which time public services such as trash collection have collapsed.  Soon after, Hizbullah Secretary-General Hasan Nasrallah endorsed the strange bedfellows alliance. ‘Aoun, a Maronite, would become President, and Hariri, a Sunni, would be Prime Minister, since those jobs are reserved for those confessional groups.

Joyce Karam in an op/ed sees it as a Hariri concession.  It may well break the deadlock and see a President elected in coming days (Parliament chooses the President), but all the faces will be old familiar ones.

On the Eve of Jordan's Vote

Jordan is far from being an ideal democracy, but it does have political parties and competitive elections, even if Parliament's power is circumscribed. Tomorrow, Jordan goes to the polls to elect a new Parliament. Curtis Ryan offers an overview at The Washington Post, and also POMEPS has a podcast with Ryan on the same subject. They provide a useful briefing before the vote.

Aiming for the PETA Vote? Rouhani Replaces Nowruz Goldfish with an Orange

Traditionally the Persian New Year Nowruz is celebrated with the Haft Sin table of seven items beginning with the letter "s," plus other traditional items such as the poetry of Hafiz and a live goldfish in a bowl. The goldfish are usually released into the wild at the end of the feast, where they are unlikely to live long. Many have called for a symbolic substitute, such as using a plastic fish.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's Nowruz greetings on Twitter included a photo of himself standing next to a Haft Sin table adorned with a goldfish bowl containing what appears to be an orange in place of the goldfish.

On her Twitter feed, Vice President Massoumeh Ebtikar also called attention to the substitution, and to the fact that the bowl contains very little water.
Rouhani will be eligible for a second term in the 2017 Presidential elections.  Is he vying for the PETA and Save Water vote?

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Hossam Bahgat on Why Parliament was Won by Pro-Sisi Forces

Hossam Bahgat, the Egyptian regime critic who was jailed for a time and recently reused permission to travel, has a rather daring article at Mada Masr documenting the direct role played by Egyptian General Intelligence in creating the pro-Sisi coalition that dominates the new Parliament. This article is unlikely to sit well with the government. I think this article is essential and will be widely cited.

Surprise: New Egyptian Parliament Dominated by Pro-Sisi Forces

I haven't written much about the final results of Egypt's Parliamentary elections because, frankly, Egyptians didn't pay much attention either, as evidenced by the low turnout, which even the official media noted.

While there are still a few challenged results and the President will appoint additional members, Egypt's new unicameral House of Representatives (replacing the bicameral People's Assembly and Shura Council), on the one hand, is not a monolithic body dominated by a single party as in past eras, but rather a mix of many parties and independents representing a range across he ideological spectrum. The catch is the vast majority support President al-Sisi's policies, and the other catch is that the body may have less power than the dissolved Islamist Parliament elected in 2011.

The seats allocated to Party Lists 120, were all taken by the "For the love of Egypt" coalition, a lierl.secularist coalition of a number of parties. The remaining seats, allocated by individual constituency competition, also saw the members of the coalition do well, with the Free Egyptians Party, founded by Naguib Sawiris, the venerable liberal Wafd, and the new and little-known Future of the Homeland Party leading the secular parties. The only Islamist Party running, al-Nour, alsoately well but nothing like 2011 when it was the largest bloc in Parliament.


Now most of the liberal secular parties are negotiating to form a pro-Sisi bloc. There are some differences. The most pro-Sisi elements want, as Sisi himself has suggested, to amend the 2014 Constitution to restore some of the reductions made to Presidential power from the Sadat-Mubarak era.

Egypt Votes in Second Phase

Today was the second day of the second phase of Egypt's parliamentary elections with voting in the 14 governorates that did not vote last month, including Cairo. Early indications are that turnout is still low though perhaps somewhat higher than in the first round, which saw a 26% turnout.

Runoffs where needed will occur in early December.

President Sisi voted in Heliopolis:

The AKP Landslide

Anadolu News Agency

I never claim to be an expert on Turkey, especially Turkish politics. I chose not to make any predictions here on the November 1 elections, mostly because I believe it's safer to save your predictions until the results are known. The AKP victory was not unexpected, but the scope of the landslide was greater than many had forecast, reversing the setbacks suffered in the June elections and the stalemated situation in attempts to form a coalition that followed. With the AKP again enjoying a majority, the proposed constitutional changes favored by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan now may well pass, further strengthening Presidential power. In June many read the setbacks as a defeat for Erdoğan, and so this will be seen as a victory for him as well, though technically the President is above Party and no longer a member of the AKP, and the victory is really that pf Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. The dynamics between Davutoğlu and Erdoğan are a subject of considerable discussion and will be worth watching.

Egypt's Runoff Round: Even the State Press Underplays the Story

Egypt's runoff round for the first phase of the Parliamentary elections (14 governorates), despite disappointment at the low turnout overall, is more or less complete, short of challenges. Some accounts suggest turnout for the runoffs was even lower than the 26.5% announced for the first round. Here are the results in  English from Ahram Online:

Preliminary results of the polling have showed that parties have gained over half of the 226 seats contested by individual candidates in the vote.

The Free Egyptians Party, founded by billionaire businessman Naguib Sawiris following the popular 2011 revolt, has clinched the biggest quota, announcing it has won 36 seats.

The Future of a Homeland (Mostakbal Watan), a newly founded pro-regime party, came second with 30 seats. The almost 100-year-old liberal Wafd Party won 17 seats, according to its media advisor Yasser Hassan.

"It is a very healthy phenomenon to have a big number of parties winning in the face of independents," assistant secretary-general of the Free Egyptians Party Ayman Abu Al-Ella told Ahram Online.

"It mirrors a political maturity among the people and underlines some parties' ability to strengthen their footing in the political spectrum," said Abu Al-Ella, who appears to have won a seat in Cairo's western suburb of 6th of October City.

But with most of the contesting party members said to be businessmen, some fear a comeback of the kind of patronage politics and cronyism that prevailed under former autocrat Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule before he was overthrown in 2011.

The first round of the much-postponed elections took place last week in 14 of Egypt's 27 governorates and was marred by a low turnout of 26.6 percent of eligible voters.

Only the individual seats were contested in the run-offs, as party list seats in the first round were swept up by For the Love of Egypt, a coalition loyal to President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi.

The Nour Party, the only Islamist party standing in the vote, won 10 seats, mainly in the governorates of Beheira and Alexandria where they court massive popularity.

Nour, which supported the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, lost all party-based seats in the first round to the pro-El-Sisi alliance, despite coming second, due to the highly-criticised winner-takes-all list system.

The liberal Egyptian Social Democratic Party, which won 23 of the 2011 parliament's 508 seats, only secured 3 places in the poll.

 So the new Parliament part of it elected so far, will be dominated  by For the Love of Egypt (pro-Sisi), the Free Egyptians, founded by a billionaire businessman and also pro-Sisi, and the Future of the Homeland (also pro-Sisi). And some Wafdists (who don't like the Muslim Brotherhood and likely will be pro-Sisi) and some Nour deputies.

Well, there are numerous parties represented. They just don't differ on much.

Tomorrow's front page of Al-Ahram may be indicative of something: the main headline is about a new foreign investment project announced by President Sisi that runs across the page; the election returns get a second tier, shorter headline, and that's on the front page of the Friday (main weekend edition of the flagship state-owned newspaper. Is even the official media underplaying the low turnout and the results?

Egypt's Low Turnout in Round One

What if they gave an election and nobody came? The first round of the first wave of Egypt's long-delayed Parliamentary elections brought an officially reported turnout of only 26.5% of voters. Now the first phase of elections involved only 14 governorates; the other nine will vote in November, including Cairo (though Giza, which is a major part of Greater Cairo, and Alexandria voted in round one). The turnout numbers, however, are based I believe on registered voters in those governorates that voted, not on totals. By contrast, turnout in he 2011 post-revolutionary elections was 64%. (On the positive side, nobody claims 99% turnouts anymore.)

Runoffs were taking place yesterday and today where needed, and it sounds as if turnoffs remain low, especially in Alexandria, suffering from serious flooding.

At Long Last, Egypt's Parliamentary Vote to Begin

After a three-day holiday weekend in the US, I'm playing catch-up. The sixth and final part of my series on the attempt to take Baghdad in 1915 will appear tomorrow.

In a few days, Egypt begins the much-delayed process of electing a new Parliament for the first time since the post-Revolution elected Parliament was dissolved in 2012. The process is  complex one and will not be completed until the last round of runoffs in December. Critics argue that the complicated mix of individual consistency seats and part lists will limit the success of organized parties and favor local political notables and their patronage networks. While these are competitive, multi-candidate elections, the new unicameral Parliament, the House of Representatives (Maglis al-Nawwab), is larger than the old Lower House, the People's Assembly, and thus power is even more diffuse. The Upper House is gone. Combined with Egypt's strong Presidency, and the fact that the current President has been ruling by decree without having to trouble with a Parliament until now, it is difficult to predict how much power it will really exercise.

Though the Muslim Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party are banned, the Salafi Nour Party, which won a plurality in the last People's Assembly, is bring allowed to run, but it may suffer from a backlash against religious parties generally. As mentioned, the elections are structured to disadvantage those running on party list, but it is still likely to be a more pluralistic Parliament than those elected in the Mubarak era. But that does not mean it will have more power.

As I said, the various stages and runoffs will run from this week into December, so there will be plenty of time for analysis by me and others. Some selected readings to begin the season:

MadaMasr  has a useful infographic of the various parties, coalitions, and alliance.

Two of the best Egypt-watchers in the business are Robert Springborg and Nathan Brown. Both have recent assessments of the Parliamentary  prospects at The Washington Post's "The Monkey Cage" column:

Robert Springborg, "Egyptian Parliamentary elections are just a sideshow in the Sissi regime."

Nathan J. Brown, "Why Egypt's New Parliament will be born broken."

An un-bylined Leader in The Economist, unsigned as always but I suspect Max Rodenbeck: "A Dud return to democracy."

Finally, on the Salafists and Islamists, Jacob Oldfort for The Washington Institute: "Fall of the Brotherhood, Rise of the Salafis."

Erdoğan's Second Roll of the Dice

Just a reminder: Postings will be sparse during my current two week vacation.

My vacation posting has been spotty  and largely devoted to historical themes, rather than current commentary; when I'm back on the clock next week I'll do some catching up, but meanwhile it seems appropriate to comment on this week's major (if expected) development: the scheduling of a new round of Turkish elections for November 1.

The june elections deprived the ruling AKP of its majority and blocked President
Erdoğan's hopes of amending the Constitution to produce a strong presidency. The AKP no longer had a majority in the Grand National Assembly, and weeks and months of negotiations with opposition parties failed to produce a viable coalition, so it had become obvious that new elections would be required.

But will Erdoğan win his gamble this time around, or will the opposition parties, encouraged by the blow already administered by the AKP, try even harder. I'm sure they'll try, but the first round put
Erdoğan on notice that the AKP is vulnerable. I leave detailed analysis to the Turkey experts, but I expect the next couple of months of campaigning could produce a wild ride for Turkey.

Erdoğan Headline of the Day

I'll let others analyze the deeper meaning of the Turkish elections and the frustrations to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's dream of amending the Constitution. The anti-Erdoğan Hurriyet Daily News has this telling headline:

"Water cannon producer’s stock dips after Turkey’s ruling AKP loses majority."

The largest supplier of police water cannons in Turkey has seen a steep fall in its stock prices, hours after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority.

Shares in Katmerciler Ekipman, the company that manufactures the riot control vehicles popularly known as TOMAs, decreased 10 percent early June 8. 

Election Note: If There is a National Unity Government, the Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset Will Be an Arab

Update:  this post was written before actual votes had been counted, when exit polling suggested a tie. Since then the vote has gone more heavily to Likud, though a Unity Government remains a possibility. The Joint List now seems likely to get 14 seats however, one more than suggested below.

Despite Netanyahu's rush to declare victory, the ultimate shape of the next Israeli government  is far from clear. If the exit poll indications are borne out, with the two big parties tied at 27 seats each, Netanyahu will have a better prospect of forming a coalition than Herzog, but it would still be one with a narrow majority. Though neither Likud nor the Zionist Union want it, there may be pressure to form a National Unity Government around the two big parties. In fact, there already is pressure: Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has said he will urge them to do so, and while the Israeli President is largely powerless, he is the person who decides who will get the chance to form a government.

And if the two big parties form a unity government, then the Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset will be the head of the third biggest bloc.

And for the first time in Israeli history, that will be an Israeli Arab: Ayman Oudeh of the United List. The Arab vote, though some 20% of the population in Israel proper (within the Green Line)  has usually been divided among several Arab parties and the far left joint Jewish-Arab Hadash (and many don't vote).

This year they ran united under Oudeh's leadership, and are the third biggest bloc (if the exit poll forecasts don't shift) with 13 seats. Ironic given Netanyahu's last-ditch warnings about the dangers of the Arab vote.

Lisa Goldman has a profile of Oudeh and his innovative, inclusive campaign: "Ayman Oudeh has already Won Israel's Election."

On Election Eve: Zionist Union Leading Likud, but Forming a Coalition May Be Another Matter

The Israeli elections are tomorrow. I haven't been blogging the campaign given the extensive number of Israeli English-language news sites, but I guess I need to go on the record before the vote.

The trick of course is that Israeli political maneuvering really begins after the votes are counted. No party has ever won a majority in the history of the state. The party that wins the most votes will be invited to form a government first. But that doesn't guarantee governance. In 2009 Tzipi Livni's (then) Kadima won more Knesset seats than Netanyahu's Likud, but could not put together a majority while Bibi could. (In 2013 Netanyahu and Likud ran more strongly but it still took time to hammer out a coalition.)

This year, Likud faces a stong challenge from a revitalized Labor Party, under Yitzhak (or Isaac) Herzog, in alliance with Tzipi Livni's current party, Hatnua, running together as the Zionist Union. Herzog, son of Chaim Herzog, onetime general, spokesman, and President of Israel. (The younger Herzog's family tree is fascinating too: Chaim was born in  Ireland of Polish ancestry and his wife in Egypt of Russian ancestry.)

Israeli laaw forbids polling in the last five days of a campaign, so the last published polls were dated last Friday. Most of hese showed the Zionist Union leading by about four seats over Likud, mostly in the range of 26-22 or 25-21. Likud's vote is expected to decline from 2013. If the actual vote bears that out, Herzog will likely have the first chance to form a government. He will have 28 days to do that and can ask for a 14-day extension for a total of 42. After that, Netanyahu would be offered the chance.

I'll offer my own speculations here, but note this piece in the pro-Herzog Haaretz arguing he can't make the math work; but see also this piece in The Forward that argues it's difficult but not impossible,

Though the polls indicate that many voters are disillusioned and tired of Netanyahu, and running second will be a blow to his prestige, don't count him out. Offering Herzog the first opportunity to forge a coalition is one thing, but as with Livni in 2009, actually putting together 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset is quite another matter.

Neither Herzog nor Netanyahu is likely to favor a National Unity Government including both parties (and ensuring policy paralysis) unless no other result is possible, so each of the two will be scrambling to put together a coalition for themselves and cut deals which will block their rival from forming one.

This where the math gets tricky for Herzog. The quirks of Israeli politics mean that in practice, not all parties elected are available for coalition building. Longstanding tradition holds that Zionist parties not build a coalition that depends for its majority on non-Zionist Communist and Arab parties. (There have been moments when a minority government held on to power because those parties did not vote no confidence, but they are not included in coalition-building.) Those parties are running this time as the United List, and this time around they have repeatedly asserted that they will not join any coalition. As of the end of polling most polls listed them as likely winning around 13 seats. If they do it would mean that 13 of the 120 seats are effectively out of play for coalition building. or a little over 10% of the Knesset. (And if Herzog did break with tradition and somehow persuaded them to join, two improbabilities to start with, he'd lose the ability to include the religious parties.)

The parties to the right of Likud, notably Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beteinu and Naftali Bennett's Jewish Home (HaBayit HaYehudi) will be off the table for bargaining with Herzog. His most natural allies would be Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid and the leftist Meretz, but these are fiercely secularist parties and would not play well with the religious  parties, mainly the haredi Shas and United Torah Judaism, and perhaps Yachad. (For years, coalitions depended on the moderate, Orthodox but non-haredi National Religious Party as a key element, but its linear descendant Jewish Home under Naftali Bennett makes Netanyahu look like a peacenik.) The new Kulanu Party might be persuaded to join as well. But several of these parties might be more natural partners for Likud.

So Herzog (assuming he wins more seats than Netanyahu) faces the quandary Livni did in 2009 when she failed to form a coalition: of the limited Lego blocks available for coalition building,  many do not all play well together. Add Meretz, lose Shas, and so on.

The electoral "threshold" is currently set at 3.25%, which translates roughly into four seats in he Knesset. Parties winning below the threshold have their votes distributed proportionally among the parties above the threshold, but some parties have vote-sharing agreements, and it can take several days to sort out the precise final distribution. Once that number is finalized (well, even before), the smaller potential partners start making demands and extracting promises from the two big blocs.

So tomorrow's vote is not the finish line but the starting gun. The campaign is over; let the wheeling and dealing begin!

And since it's also Saint Patrick's Day, watch the returns in an Irish pub. (actually I never go to an Irish pub on St. Patrick's Day; too many people who are only Irish once a year.)

Nathan Brown and Mai El-Saldany on Egypt's Delayed Elections

I haven't yet commented on the recent Egyptian court ruling which threatens to postpone the Parliamentary elections which were due to start later this month, and now I don't have to as Nathan Brown and Mai El-Sadany have done it better than I could hope to: "Egypt's Elections on Pause," for the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.

Meanwhile, efforts are under way to amend the electoral law that was declared unconstitutional

A Useful Way to Track Israeli Opinion Polling During This Election

Israeli elections, with their proliferation of parties and shifting alliances,  further complicated by the fact that there are multiple polling agencies getting differing results, can be confounding. A hat tip to Avner Cohen for drawing attention to a rather useful Wikipedia entry: "Opinion Polling for the Israeli Legislative Election, 2015." 

It has useful comparative tables party by party, and appears to be updated almost daily.

You Don't See This Every Day in the Arab World. We Need More of It

Outgoing Tunisian President Marzouki, right, hands over power to incoming Tunisian President Essebsi, who beat him in the runoff after free, competitive, multi-party elections.

A peaceful, scheduled, transfer of power after elections in an Arab country. With a handshake. Bravo, whatever you may think of Essebsi. Where Arab Spring began, there's still a scent of jasmine in the air.

Makovsky: Netanyahu "No Longer the Presumptive Favorite"

David Makovsky at The Washington Institute looks at the shifting alliances and pre-election maneuvering in Israel, including the new alliance between Labor and Tzipi Livni's Hatnua. It's a good summary of the shifting alliances on the right as well as the center-left.

Egypt's Draft Parliamentary Election Law is Weighted against Party Lists

Egypt's draft law spelling out the details of the Parliamentary election promised for early next year was approved by the Egyptian Cabinet today. Like previous Egyptian electoral laws, it calls for a mixture of constituency races and party lists, with the balance heavily weighted towards constituencies, where all candidates are supposed to be independents. (Historically this has tended to favor big landowners or others capable of dispensing patronage.)

Unsurprisingly, some political parties are complaining,  and others are expressing concerns that the constituencies may not provide a just distribution based on population.

Parliament will have 567 seats; 420 will be independents elected in 231 constituencies, with each constituency returning between one and three candidtes. Party lists will choose another 120 MPs, and the President will appoint 27.residential appointments have usually been used to assure that Copts and women, for example, are represented.

Netanyahu's Gamble on New Elections: A Coalition without the Centrist Parties?

Binyamin Netanyahu's call for new elections after public divisions within his coalition led him to oust two of his centrist coalition partners is likely to produce an electoral campaign largely based on personalities; he is clearly gambling on the fact that present polling suggests that the results may allow him to form a government consisting solely of rightist and religious parties. Polls can change in the course of a heated campaign, but by scrapping the parties of Yair Lapid nd Tzipi Livni, who were moderating elements in the 19th Knesset, the prospect may be for an even more rightist coalition by next spring.

I'm sure I'll have more to say as we go along.