Tueni seen as having upper hand in Beirut race
Analysts say daughter of slain journalist will beat Deputy PM in battle for orthodox seat
This week”s confrontation between Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) head MP Michel Aoun and various March 14 coalition leaders over Nayla Tueni”s parliamentary candidacy underscores the importance Aoun accords to the electoral battleground of Beirut”s first district.
Aoun a stalwart of the March 8 alliance, said on Monday that Tueni, born in 1982, should abandon her declared candidacy for the district”s Orthodox seat and save a run for when she was better qualified. Tueni, assistant general director of Lebanon”s top-selling daily An-Nahar and the daughter of slain MP and journalist Gebran Tueni, said in a statement issued Tuesday that Aoun was using "uncivilized methods" and had insulted the residents of Achrafieh, which falls in the first district.
Two analysts interviewed by The Daily Star on Wednesday called the race for Tueni, while two others said it remained too early to forecast a winner, but all said the spat represented only the first salvos in a campaign certain to be intensely fought and long on rhetoric.
"Michel Aoun is trying to intimidate her, to use psychological warfare … and March 14 understands that," said Oussama Safa, executive director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies. "This is a battle for control of Achrafieh”s first district. Michel Aoun definitely wants a presence. He wants to prove his power on the ground. He wants to send a statement.
"It will be a bad loss for him if his list loses," Safa added.
With the 10 seats of Beirut”s Sunni-dominated third district assured for parliamentary majority leader MP Saad Hariri”s Future Movement, and strong March 14-allied candidates such as Tueni and former Minister of State for Legislative Affairs Michel Pharaon running in the first district, Aoun could well find himself in a "squeeze" in the capital, Safa added. The first district has five seats, two reserved for Armenians and one each for Orthodox, Maronite and Catholic candidates. Armenian candidates will also vie for all the second district”s four seats.
Hilal Khashan, head of the department of political studies and public administration at the American University of Beirut, said the Tueni name would handily carry Nayla Tueni to victory in the pivotal June 7 poll over the FPM”s Orthodox candidate, Deputy Premier Issam Abu Jamra.
"It doesn”t matter if Ms. Nayla has credentials or not – if she runs, she will get it," Khashan said. "That”s how we do politics in Lebanon – it”s political inheritance, it”s a family business. Let”s not talk about credentials – they don”t matter in Lebanon. What matters is your family background. You can already say “Mabrouk” to Nayla."
Tueni will benefit from the advantages of her youth, her attractiveness to female voters and the support of the An-Nahar network. MP Ghassan Tueni, Nayla”s grandfather, serves as An-Nahar”s general director and is regarded by many as one of the country”s elder statesmen.
Aoun, however, thinks Abu Jamra can defeat Nayla Tueni, but only because he has yet to grasp how broadly the nation”s Christians have rejected his political partnership with Hizbullah and his newfound closeness to Syria, Khashan said.
"He has a false political consciousness," Khashan said. "He is out of touch with reality. There is nothing he can do to justify to Christian voters his alliance with Hizbullah. The rank and file is not in the mood for his type of alliances."
Aoun also comes off looking like a hypocrite for leveling charges of nepotism due to the Tueni family history, while Aoun has long demanded political accommodations for his son-in-law, Telecommunications Minister Jebran Bassil, Khashan added.
Retired General Elias Hanna, who teaches political science at Notre Dame University, also predicted Tueni would win and said Aoun was merely inventing arbitrary criteria such as age and family membership in order to forge fiery political rhetoric.
"This is like a smear campaign, like mobilization," Hanna said.
Not only might Aoun be using specious arguments, but Abu Jamra faces numerous obstacles in Achrafieh as an "outsider" from the village of Kfeir in the Hasbaya region, Safa said.
In addition, Abu Jamra has curried little favor among the district”s smattering of Sunnis through his long-running feud with Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a leading figure in Hariri”s Future Movement, said Khashan.
"The Sunnis will not forgive him for that," Khashan said. "You can”t antagonize the Sunni population in Beirut if you want to win in elections. It is Abu Jamra who compromised himself in Beirut."
Safa, meanwhile, said that he did not see a clear favorite in the race because not all parties have yet submitted candidate lists for the elections. Parties have until April 7 to present their nominees for the general elections, which are expected to come down to the results in Christian-majority districts.
Paul Salem, head of the Carnegie Middle East Center, also said it was too soon to pick a probable victor, with much "deal-making" sure to take place among various parties before the vote. In addition, Tueni and Abu Jamra are first-time candidates, and the June 7 elections also mark the first poll since Beirut was redrawn into these three districts as part of the Doha agreement in May 2008, providing too little precedent to call a race anticipated to be close, Salem added.
"It”s too many unknowns for anybody to predict anything," he said.
In the first district”s Catholic seat, Pharaon appears a lock to defeat FPM candidate Nicolas Sehnaoui, the analysts said.
"He will win, I”m sure," Safa said.
Khashan and Hanna also picked March 14 nominee Nadim Gemayel, son of assassinated President-elect Bashir Gemayel, to win the first district”s Maronite seat over Massoud al-Ashkar, who fought by the side of Bashir Gemayel in Achrafieh during the 1975-90 Civil War.
Ashkar has a better chance than Abu Jamra because of Ashkar”s established Achrafieh constituency, but the Gemayel family "legacy" should earn Nadim Gemayel the seat, Hanna said.
Safa, however, said the relative "unknown" Gemayel and Ashkar were locked in a "neck-and-neck" race.
The first district”s two Armenian seats, as well as the four seats of the second district, will turn on whether the dominant Armenian Tashnag party aligns itself with the March 14 or March 8 factions, the analysts said.
Many Armenians remain grateful to Aoun for backing the establishment of an all-Armenian electoral district, while rumors have surfaced that Tashnag has discussed an electoral alliance with Hariri, Hanna said.
In any case, the second district seems like the best hope for Aoun and the March 8 camp to make inroads against the March 14 Forces” sway in the capital, Khashan said.
"I expect the opposition to be able to score [in the second district] but not elsewhere in Beirut," he said. "It goes without saying – March 14 will take Beirut."