Lebanese presidential elections have been rescheduled once again, this time moved from November 12 to the 21, which will give Lebanese politicians time to come to terms.
It is their last chance though because President Emile Lahoud’s term in office ends on November 24. However, it will not be easy to find a candidate who would suit all the parties.
Theoretically, the new head of state’s job should be to consolidate the nation and lift the country out of the chaos. However, in the current situation the elections may yield a reverse effect and prod the country further into a political crisis and on to a civil war.
It is clear that there is no politician on the Lebanese political stage who could equally suit the opposition and the parliamentary majority. The discussions on the issue, which have gone on for several months, have failed. Finally, representatives of the two political groups went to Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir and asked him and other community leaders to nominate several presidential candidates on whom the parliamentary parties could compromise.
According to the Lebanese constitution, the president is elected by parliament from the Maronite community (a branch of Christianity). But today, even the Lebanese Christians have split into two irreconcilable parties, like the rest of the country. If they do not reach an accord, a vote in parliament will be pointless.
If the vote does take place, Lebanon will end up torn apart by civil war. The problem is that the constitutional clauses defining the presidential election procedure can be loosely interpreted by each of the sides to best suit their purposes.
The opposition argues that a two-thirds quorum should be present to confirm a legitimate win of one of the candidates. The ruling coalition, March 14, which holds 68 out of the 127 parliament mandates, is convinced that a simple majority would do. If the coalition chooses this scheme, Lebanon might end up with two presidents and two governments, even if it violates constitutional procedure. The country’s history has seen precedents.
The international community, especially the countries with strong ties to Lebanon, will not be satisfied with such developments any more than the Lebanese people.
External interference is playing a dual role, aggravating the situation but at the same time adding a restraining factor, paradoxical as it might seem. Without a go-ahead from Washington, the ruling majority will hardly venture to resort to extreme measures, that is, will not dare elect a president without the opposition’s consent.
Lebanon has once again found itself in a situation where its future is decided abroad. Even the plan to ask the Maronite patriarch to nominate candidates was not heaven-sent, but devised in Damascus, intermediated by Paris. Arab media suggests that was the reason for the ever more frequent visits of French envoys to the region. The Lebanese politicians were never left alone in their desperate search for compromise. Syria and the United States also actively participated in the process. But have they found anything? Will the Christian patriarch succeed where politicians failed? And, more importantly, will the candidates he nominates really suit the opposition, the ruling coalition, Damascus and Washington?
Hardly. On the other hand, the fact that the two conflicting parties at least agreed on asking the patriarch to be an arbitrator in their dispute is encouraging. Moreover, the leaders of Christian parties seem ready to give up their own political ambitions.
General Michel Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement has made it clear that he did not have to be the only presidential hopeful. “We are not saying it should be us, and us only. On the contrary, we support a consensus on a candidate,“ he said. “We are not trying to cross anyone out, but we won’t have anyone crossing out us.“
The leaders of the ruling coalition and the opposition have repeatedly reaffirmed their commitment to search for a compromise over the past few months. What is new about General Aoun’s statement was that he mentioned the possibility of someone else besides himself elected president. Prior to that, he incessantly talked about his own ambition to become president. Still, he might change his mind on second thought. Washington, too, can change plans. If the Patriarch Plan fails, it may give the ruling coalition carte-blanche.
RIANOVOSTI.COM

A quarter of the candidates in next week’s Jordanian elections are women, but they face an uphill battle. Only six women are now in parliament, and the handful that served, such as liberal lawmaker Toujan Faisal, say they face intimidation and lack of respect in conservative, tribal-dominated Jordan.
Faisal, Jordan’s first female lawmaker, accuses her government opponents of shutting off highway lighting as she drove in total darkness one rainy night back home from the country’s north. She says they also sent strangers for a pre-dawn house break-in, and once even had an armed man lurking around her apartment’s balcony.
Now, the government critic has been disqualified from contesting next week’s parliamentary elections because of slander charges for having accused a former prime minister of corruption five years ago.
“They try to intimidate and discredit me because I dare to speak out,“ said the striking blonde, an ardent champion of liberal views in Jordan, where parliament is nearly an all-male affair.
In all, 203 women and 750 men will compete for positions in the Nov. 20 poll, which the government billed as a march toward democracy in this pro-U.S. kingdom. But government critics accuse it of clamping down on Islamists and liberals alike.
Although women make up about half of Jordan’s population, they are underrepresented in government. No female candidate won outright in the previous legislative elections in 2003, except through a quota system offered by the government to ensure at least six women sit in the 110-seat legislature.
Still, women in Jordan enjoy relative freedoms, compared with their peers in Saudi Arabia, where they are banned from driving, voting or running in municipal elections. In Jordan, there are female judges, police, air force pilots and business executives.
But restrictions remain. They are prevented from passing on their nationalities to their children or foreign husbands, and cannot travel abroad without their husband’s consent.
An average of 20 women are killed yearly in Jordan in what is known as honor crimes.
Judges often commute sentences in honor killing cases, especially if family members drop the charges.
Jordan’s reformist monarch, King Abdullah II, has tried to push for harsher penalties for those crimes but faces resistance from traditionalists who argue this would promote vice.
In the coming vote, traditionally pro-monarch Bedouin tribesmen are expected to win the greatest number of seats in the powerful Chamber of Deputies. But Abdullah, who is an absolute monarch, can dismiss parliament and rule by decree.
Faisal, the liberal lawmaker, was locked in a legal battle with authorities who claimed she only served part of her 2002 conviction on slander charges. The king pardoned her after she spent 100 days of an 18-month term in prison.
When she was first elected in 1993, Faisal said she was viewed by male deputies “like an ornament in the house“ with “everyone sitting by my side“ just to get photographed.
They soon realized she was not just a “pretty face in parliament, but a real politician,“ she said.
Another former lawmaker, Wijdan Talhouni Saket, said the problem of proportional balloting was keeping her from running this time.
“It’s not if you bring the most votes that you’ll get a seat,“ she said. Saket only got a seat after the king intervened, appointing her to the Upper House, or Senate.
One former lawmaker who is undeterred from pursuing another election bid is Hayet al-Musaymeh of the Islamic Action Front, Jordan’s largest opposition group with 17 seats in the previous legislature.
“I represent all the women who will vote for our program,“ said the pharmacist, the only female candidate running under a party banner, rather than as an independent.
But in Jordan’s traditional society, many female votes are likely to go to male relatives because of family pressures.
Impoverished voters are also regularly paid to vote for wealthy candidates, Saket and other critics say.
AP.COM

The recent crash of an Air Force F-15 fighter jet--and the grounding of the entire 700-plane fleet as a precautionary measure--is the latest reminder of the tough military budget choices this country will face for the foreseeable future.
Even if American troops were withdrawn from Iraq tomorrow, billions of dollars would still be needed to replenish military equipment, swap aging weapons systems for new ones and rebuild and expand ground forces strained to the breaking point by this misguided war.
After years of signing blank checks to the Pentagon, the next president and Congress will also have to insist on a serious review of what is truly needed to protect the country from a new generation of threats--and not just line the pockets of contractors and their lobbyists.
Although the crash in Missouri on Nov. 2 is still being studied, initial reports suggest that the plane suffered structural failure and disintegrated in the air. That F-15 was built in 1980, but some of the planes in the fleet are more than 30 years old. The problem is that the Air Force’s chosen replacement, the F-22 stealth fighter, is both extremely expensive and already out of date--designed originally for air-to-air combat against Soviet style MIG fighters during the cold war.
American taxpayers have a right to insist that the Pentagon make sounder choices in the future.
The most immediate problem is digging out from Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army has borne much of the burden, and it will need a lot of help to replace war-worn equipment and replenish a strained and war-weary force.
As it has struggled to meet recruiting targets, the Army has had to compromise personnel standards. Last year, 15 percent of recruits needed waivers because they didn’t meet requirements on education, medical and lack of a criminal record. That number has risen to 18 percent so far this year. Meanwhile, a large percentage of West Point graduates--the elite corps from which Army officers are drawn--are leaving active duty as soon as their required time is up.
Exploding health care expenses for returning veterans and what many servicemen and officers see as a crisis of confidence in military leadership add to the challenges going forward. The Navy and Marine Corps also have their own replacement and modernization problems. The Army and the Marines, having carried these wars, deserve to have their needs addressed first.
The United States has spent a staggering $800 billion just on war fighting since Sept. 11, 2001. President Bush has no plan for rebuilding the force, beyond asking for ever more cash.
The presidential candidates will have to do a better job. They can start by explaining how they plan to withdraw American troops from Iraq and then how they plan to rebuild a military capable of defending this country from a new generation of threats.
NYTIMES.COM

Somalia’s internal conflict is propelled by a combustible mix of religion, politics and clan rivalry. Civilians are killed daily in Mogadishu, there are roadside bombs and mortar attacks, and politicians and journalists are targeted. Making matters worse, the country has suffered this year from both floods and drought.
This combination of insecurity and natural disasters has displaced huge numbers of people and caused suffering on a scale painful to behold. According to the most recent United Nations figures, 400,000 people, or roughly one-third of Mogadishu’s population, have fled the city.
Yet Somalia still rarely gets into the headlines. This partly reflects the near impossibility of gathering news. Few foreign journalists venture in - it is too difficult and too dangerous for them to work inside the country - and local reporters are harassed by the authorities. And, even when there is news, the world’s capacity to absorb bad and sad stories from yet another hellish place is limited.
The lawlessness and absence of security makes finding a political solution almost impossible. When local elders and delegates wanted to assemble in Mogadishu for a reconciliation conference, security conditions forced them to postpone the conference for several months (though when they did meet, in big numbers and for a long time, they achieved no breakthrough).
A plane with the UN envoy for human rights was denied landing rights in Baidoa (seat of the Somali parliament) not long ago, and pilots sometimes refuse to fly foreigners to Mogadishu, because it is too dangerous. The same lack of security applies to delivering aid: on a recent visit to north Somalia to assess humanitarian needs, a team from the International Rescue Committee, of which I was a part spent more time, effort, and funds on security issues than on inspecting wells and evaluating the need for latrines, although the lack of water and sanitation is acute.
On a 25-mile stretch of road between the southern cities of Kismayo and Jilib, there are at least 35 checkpoints manned by armed men who take $50 to $200 from passing travellers. Offshore, piracy seriously disrupts aid being brought in by ships.
One incident in southern Somalia vividly demonstrated how insecurity can hamper humanitarian work. While our assessment team was in the town of Marare, a banal scene of two friends in their 20s having breakfast turned into a major drama when one of the boys mishandled his Kalashnikov and accidentally killed his friend.
The boys were from the same clan, but, alas, from different sub-clans. The customary procedure is that the victim’s family gets to kill someone from the perpetrator’s sub-clan. The elders of the two sub-clans spent four days negotiating a less bloody solution, and the agreed price of 100 camels - worth $7,000 - was paid as compensation. But during those four days, work at the local hospital (run by an international non-governmental organisation) was impeded, as all staff from the perpetrator’s sub-clan stayed away from their jobs, lest they be targeted for a revenge killing.
The dilemma that the accident presented is not easy for a foreigner to understand. But the way the elders steered clear of a violent resolution is an admirable example of good governance.
If only such practices were used to tackle the vast majority of the problems that overwhelm Somalia. In this quintessential “failed state,“ this sort of elders’ wisdom may be the only option to start dealing with the quagmire created by the lawlessness that has gripped the country since the departure of the dictator Said Barre in 1991.
Ignoring the situation in Somalia and not trying to re-establish law and order is not an option. The two main factions fighting in Mogadishu are backed, respectively, by Ethiopia and Eritrea. Because those nations - among the poorest in Africa - have an unresolved border dispute that led to a 1998-2000 war in which tens of thousands died on both sides and hostilities in the area continue, their involvement, by proxy, in the Somali civil war may have grave implications for the entire Horn of Africa.
Anna Husarska
GUARDIAN.CO.UK