All politics is local, but not in Lebanon. For the past 20 years every turn in the country's fortunes has been tied into the wider politics of the Middle East. Even the decision to hold the country's first parliamentary election in two decades, probably some time this summer, is, say Lebanese politicians, all part of the quarrel between Syria and America over the Arab-Israeli peace talks.
Their theory goes like this. Syria President Hafez Assad keeps the peace, and up to 40,000 troops, inside Lebanon. Under an agreement made in the Saudi town of Taif in 1989 he is supposed to redeploy the troops in and around Beirut to the Bekaa valley this September. The Americans are pressing him to honor this undertaking. If, however Mr. Assad were to make a concession in the Arab-Israeli peace process-to agree, for instance, to take part in the multilateral talks-the Americans might care less about Taif. Mr. Assad, determined to cover his flanks whatever happens, wants to make sure that if his troops do leave Beirut the parliament they leave behind is firmly under Syria's thumb.
Syria's allies in Lebanon have been working hard to bring this about. The pro-Syrian minister of interior, General Sami Khatib, has seen to it that the list of voters are nearly complete. This was no easy task in a country where hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes or left the country in 16 years of civil war.
To bring to power as many of Syria's friends as possible, the geography of Lebanon is being twisted. zThe country's six electoral districts-north Lebanon, Beirut, the Bekaa, Mount Lebanon, Nabatiyeh and south Lebanon-are being redrawn. The predominantly Christian Mount Lebanon area is to be divided into two voting districts; the result should hand eight or nine seats to the pro-Syrian Druze warlord, Walid Jumblatt. Nabatiyeh and south Lebanon are to be reunited into one district in order to guarantee the dominance of Nabih Berri, the pro-Syrian Shia leader of Amal.
All of the leading contenders are besieging Damascus, the center of power, armed with maps and formulas. The whole show is being run by a Syrian triumvirate: Vice-President Abdel Halim Khaddam, Brigadier Ghazi Kanaan, the head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon, and General Hikmat Shehabi, the army chief of staff.
Eventually the new Lebanese assembly will have 130 members, half Muslim and half Christian. But Lebanese Christians are pretty unanimous in opposing this Syrian sponsored election. The Maronite patriarch, Nasrallah Sfeir, has called for a free election. Samir Geagea, the Christian militia commander, wondered, in the newspaper an-Nahar, why the Lebanese should sentence themselves to an additional four years of hard labour-the duration of the parliamentary mandate.
The Christians are afraid that any pro-Syrian parliament will, before the end of its term, elect another pro-Syrian head of state, thus prolonging Syrian hegemony. But the Christians are themselves disunited. Mr. Geagea is challenging the incumbent, George Saadah, for the chairmanship of the right-wing Phalangist Party; and election is due in June. The one Christian with strong support, General Michel Aoun, was exiled to France last year.
It will look bad if the Christians do not take part. One of the problems is that so many of them were displaced by the war; more than 100,000 live in precarious conditions in the Christian hinterland. They long to go back to their villages in areas now under Mr. Jumblatt's control. Their resettlement is held up partly their blown-up houses, but also for sectarian political reasons.
The Syrian are trying to persuade the displaced Christians to vote in the election on the understanding that one day they will be allowed to go home. A conference on the refugee problem will convene at the end of this month under the chairmanship of a former Christian commander, Elie Hobeika, another ally of Syria's. A declaration of intent by Mr. Jumblatt promising that the Christians should be allowed to return by stages to their homes is under study. France and the Vatican have been asked to try to find ways of raising the necessary money.
Even if the election and Syria's semi-pullback happen as planned, it is still uncertain whether the tiny Lebanese army can fill the vacuum in Beirut without having to withdraw forces from south Lebanon and thus weaken its bargaining position in the peace talks. Which brings Lebanon's election back, again, into the bigger picture.