What next for Lebanon after Mikati's resignation?

Will people really miss this government now it’s gone? Will they have cause to? What will happen next with a parliament approaching the end of its term, with major political opponents not talking to one another, with MPs having to go through mandatory consultations soon to choose a new government? Will the sorely needed national dialogue restart as the outgoing prime minister hoped? Will clashes in the North intensify? Will the shelling and rocketing of Lebanese border villages and towns from the Syrian side intensify or abate, and what effect will that have, is the country headed for civil war?

Everyone seems to be asking these or similar questions and on this Palm Sunday people seemed to be praying just a bit harder in the hope heaven would hear their pleas. But, in fact, we have no more control over what happens next to our country than Mikati had over many of his Cabinet members. He recognized that fact early on in his premiership and he only stayed on so as not to leave the country’s executive branch leaderless. As Mikati said in his own resignation speech, there were two other occasions he thought seriously of resigning before he finally did resign, but his final decision still came as a surprise to many, even from among his own Cabinet who had more or less driven him to take such a decision.

One year and nine months ago, when Mikati first took on the burden of government in June 2011, many speculated that his government would not survive long, and wondered if the March 8 faction would allow the man to govern at all. Still, this government survived longer than most thought it would, and certainly lasted longer than most embattled Cabinets during the country's 15-year-long civil war or since for that matter. Mikati's first mission was to reassure western powers that he was determined to keep Lebanon neutral with regards to events in Syria. Except, Mikati did not reckon with his own people’s intensely fanatical polarization towards events in Syria, that young men from both political camps would cross into Syria and involve themselves in a civil war that is not their concern.

Some analysts have said that Mikati’s decision showed him to be an astute and calculating politician, leaving when he did placed him in the best possible position. He left on a high note; the referral of the public sector salary scale draft law to parliament makes him out to be a friend to workers. The fact he resigned over the Cabinet’s refusal to extend General Rifi’s tenure as the head of the ISF, makes him seem to support a Sunni officer and a man considered by some aligned with Hariri, which some speculate is an attempt by Mikati at repairing his image within his own community. Some also interpret his departure at this time as the only way to avoid extending the current parliament’s term as no agreement has been reached to date on an acceptable election law, which also makes him appear as someone who refuses to rubberstamp de facto legislative dictatorship.

There has been a palpable sense of resignation in the country, its as if a damp blanket has been draped over the land, reviving a renewed and intense sense of fatalism the Lebanese have long been famous for. From facebook posts that predict “nothing good to come” to taxi-driving amateur political pundits who insist on weaving and reciting for their passenger’s benefit an elaborate conspiracy theory to explain every political cataclysm that nearly always implicates either the Iranians or the Americans depending which local political team they support!

The fact is the seeds of the last Cabinet’s demise were sown at its inception. A Cabinet met by ‘astonishment’ and ‘cynical disbelief’ when it was first announced, a Cabinet that many saw as being led by a man who collaborated with the ‘usurpers of majorities’ is now history. The burden of governance and of stopping a slide into civil strife and chaos lies squarely now on the shoulders of all the Lebanese of all factions and we have to assume that responsibility. Political leaders in this country have a long history of zero sum political brinkmanship that more often than not ends up blowing up in their own faces, it’s like giving a ten year old the keys to the chemistry lab, there is no telling what they will do. But ordinary people, communities and grass roots civil society organizations can do a lot to bridge sectarian divides, push their leaders to put Lebanon not regional alliances at the top of their agenda, and help heal the wounds of this long suffering country.