Description
In the Middle East, Lebanon is a singular example of a somewhat stable power-sharing confessional democracy; a deeply divided society reserving equal political representation for Muslims and Christians. After the 2005 Syrian withdrawal from the country, however, little international literature has been published on the widening of the grand governing coalition. Since 2006, the opposition led by Hezbollah (representing the Shi’a duo) pleaded for a so-called ‘guaranteeing third vote’, and a minority veto in cabinet was finally obtained under the 2008 Doha Agreement. Regionally, this power rebalancing speaks to the rise of the so-called ‘axis of resistance’ or ‘Shi’a Crescent’. Since then, not enough discussion has been done on the opposition’s actual behaviour in a national unity cabinet thenceforward. To that intent, this paper examines the opposition’s confrontation behaviour in the cabinet from 2005 to 2018. By tracking and analysing key moments of executive blockages and ministers’ resignations through domestic newspapers, backed up by elite interviews, I investigate the nature of the veto, to what extent, and under what contextual conditions it occurred. Results indicate that purposeful vetoes by the blocking opposition were thematic, demanded inter-sectarian alliances, and were limited to highly strategic issues . Moreover, the findings suggest that in confessional regimes of national coalition, informal genres of blockage are not thematically neither actor restricted. The post-2005 scenario shows that, in practice, highly liberal and informal genres of veto are richly enforced by the various religious communities as an instrument of representation, identity leverage, and protection of their vital communal interests.
Keywords: Lebanon; confessionalism; power-sharing; Shi’ism, minority veto; consensus government; Hezbollah.
