Elections 2009... What happened? Why? and how should we react!

[Z VOICE]

Good day guys...

I registered recently to this forum in order to try and get the FPM “base” voice to be heard at higher levels and to as many people as possible.

I’m not an official FPM partisan (montasib) yet, but I’m intending to become one very soon, especially that I have always been a very staunch supporter of the party and its principles. I chose to post this in order to try and discuss many of the questions that our fellows FPMers are asking themselves these days. “why did we lose?” “what have we done wrong?” “will FPM survive?” “how should we react?” etc etc…

First of all let’s talk about the 2009 elections and its consequences…despite of the very mixed feelings it brought to the majority of us, and despite the fact that most of us consider it as a failure, the last elections had, and should have, many good effects on us, the FPMers.

1. First, and most importantly, the elections showed the world that the FPMers are not a few, and despite all the weapons used against the FPM and its leader GMA, for the last 4 years (we’ll state those further down), the FPM principles proved to represent at least 50% of the Christian community (+ or – depending on the areas) added to some lower rates within the other Lebanese communities. These are the numbers we now should build on considering that they represent the “minimum minimorum” that the party’s partisans and supporters can get.

2. Second, we proved that whatever our political opponents would fight us with (considering they can not do more than what they did!) we still are considered to be as influent and capable than all of them gathered “Addoun kelloun”.

3. Third, the FPM and for the first time in Lebanese elections history was able to gather the biggest benevolent crew for the elections (cited between 70 and 80 k partisans and supporters all over the country) also proving that the FPM relies largely on the principles it has spread amongst its people and not on personal favors or benefits.

4. Fourth, the outcome of the elections was like a wake up call for the majority of us, a call for action and commitment. Many of the supporters that weren’t too much involved in the work for the party (like me) or not very interested in being involved with its activities are now eager to act and participate in the political and social activity of the FPM. I can add from my personal experience that a new wave of supporters is now seeking to fill applications for the party’s membership.

5. Fifth, the FPM succeeded in getting its supporters out of the Geo-Sectarian mindset to the wider National Lebanese way of thinking. As I recall, this was the first time that the supporters felt involved in preparing, working for and following the elections outcome countrywide. People coming from districts like Kessrwan felt involved in Zahle for example, or Zgharta or even Jezzine and so on and so on…

6. Sixth, and maybe not least, the elections helped us knowing what the FPM really stands for in matters of support. It showed us the nucleus and core of our party. Like GMA said, these are the 300 fighters of Gideon, the last men standing. These “fighters” are eager to organize their ranks and fight the next battle, they are eager to study and know what went wrong and learn from the mistakes and they are also eager to spread their faith, again, among all those who went astray.


The outcome of the elections was shocking to most of us, those who lost in their districts as well as those who won. This outcome was due to many external or internal reasons, many direct or indirect circumstances.

1. First of all, we should all be aware that the elections war against the FPM and GMA started since 2005, just after the orange tsunami, and not just a few months before the 7th of June, during which, our opponents used every way they could imagine in order to bring the orange progress to a halt.

- Since 2005, the main tool the majority used against us was the media and the press. That started with the famous “civil war” warning launched by Jumblatt just after the Mount Lebanon results and was pursued until the evening of the 7th of June with the Patriarch call for the electors not to elect those who put the Lebanese identity to danger, meaning us. Many fairy tales were written, many speeches were deviated and many accusations were raised about the FPM. We underestimated the effect of such wrongful accusations on the general public opinion which was deeply affected by hearing them over and over again, and most of the politically neutralists were driven against us. The FPM made mistakes in estimating and confronting this campaign. We considered that the society was like us, immune enough against such propaganda, and wouldn’t be affected, and we did not react enough by launching a counter propaganda to spread the true facts among people on every level. We just relied on our official FPM statements or media which, we shall all admit, are rarely followed by non FPMers.

- The “mouth to ear” spreading of their accusations and wrongful facts about the FPM was also very important. While we were relying on the rightfulness of our beliefs, and on the massive support we had in 2005, considering that the people believe in us and trust us no matter what, our opponents were continuously working on getting their messages to every individual in person. Whether that was programmed and planned or not, all March 14 supporters or partisans used to engage in a political conversation or argument, almost every time they were in the presence of any neutral or non March 14 supporter. What I called the “mouth to ear” propaganda also had a major effect on the general public opinion as well.

- Anyone who has a minimum knowledge of the Lebanese society knows that it is mainly constituted of middle and low range of income communities. Added to this, through history, a quasi social and sectarian feudalism was the key to win the affection and support of the Lebanese citizens. That key is still operational nowadays, despite the fact that the FPM was able to inject some political immunization principles within the society. Coming from my own experience and in my own district, some candidates started their campaign 4 years ago and not just now, following up the people in their district, and trying to meet every single kind of personal need they could provide help for. They were in hospitals, jails and in courts… they did never refuse any kind of help for anyone, even people who are known as their opponents, even us FPMers. In the same time, our deputies were quasi absent from the social scene, which helped our opponents in their task even more.

- March 14 factions, especially the LF, have been seriously and consistently working on the Lebanese Diaspora world wide. In every city of the world where a major Lebanese community exists, the LF has a very well organized structure with regular meetings, events and conferences in order to spread the messages they need to spread among the community abroad. Most importantly, they concentrated their efforts on the youth, gathering them on almost a weekly basis, discussing political and social issues, and of course, washing up their minds with their point of views. That was a huge help for them to easily find the mass of people that was ready to be flown to Lebanon just for the election purpose.

- The lack of publicity of the FPM social works and achievements on all levels along with the massive flow of money spent by all March 14 candidates with no exceptions, helped in shifting the public opinion towards believing that these candidates can at least provide financial help sometimes while the FPM are just the people of empty slogans and ineffective campaigns.

- The manipulation of the demographic composition of more than one district and the absence of an encountering campaign from our behalf helped in shifting the elections to their favor in many districts.

So to summarize, their principle weapons were: Money, Media, Propaganda, Structuring and Demographic manipulation.

2. Knowing which main weapons the opponents used in their campaign against us is very useful for our awareness for the future. But what is more important is for us to admit for our own mistakes, learn from them and take corrective measures to prevent them from happening again. We made many mistakes through the last 4 years to the point that, it can be said “They did not win, We lost”.

- During the last 4 years, our main flaw was our lack of enthusiasm to defend our principles and what we stand for. Like we said earlier, they fought us with a very well organized propaganda on every level, while we only relied on our media statements to fight back. As a very simple example, any of us reading this can recall the amounts of anti FPM emails (personal or forwards) which used to fill out our inboxes, and the majority of us know how rarely we used to do the same or even reply. They were bombarding us with daily rumors in every possible way (media, emails, websites, mouth to ear…) while we were only defending ourselves when we find ourselves obliged to do so. In the eve of the 2009 elections, we found ourselves in a weak “defensive” position, fighting on many front just to try and convince people that what they were told for the last 4 years was all made of lies.

- Our second main handicap was our lack of structuring on many levels. While I leave the subject of the party leadership structure (The high ranked responsible people) for someone more aware and experienced to talk about, I can allow myself to talk about some of our local organizations in the districts and towns. Although our main drawback was the postponement of the global elections of the party for many known or unknown reasons, the local organizations elections and nominations resulted in bringing to power many hard working and committed FPMers, but not as many “Leaders” who can lead the pack while preaching the FPM within the rest of the population…Our local organizations weren’t that organized, we did not seek after our supporters, we did not spread our word like we should have did, we lacked of social events and gatherings and most importantly, a local leader should be widely accepted within the local population in order to provide for the FPM the wider network possible within the neutral minds…That was often not the case.

- Despite the fact that the FPM preaches against feudalism and relationships based on personal interests, that shouldn’t mean that our deputies had to keep their distance from the base like they did, in some of the districts we won since 2005. Whether they were FPMers or just local allies, the main comments we were receiving about their practices were about there quasi-absence from the public scene. “we invited him and he did not come”, “for 4 years we never saw anyone”, “ where are our deputies”, “we still don’t know her” and so on and so on… We FPMers understand that a deputy’s duties are not to attend fortunes and sorrows, or to provide personal services and help, and that they should concentrate their power in order to introduce laws that can help the whole Lebanese population, but the average thinking traditional citizens do not understand that and we should admit it. They needed to feel watched over by the deputies they elected and see them among them but did not. Instead, they found the other party candidates, almost being in every place in the same time, attending every event, answering to every invitation and providing every help needed. That is why the neutral mass opinion was not immune enough to face the huge financial and services providing wave that came their way. That is way it shifted, almost as a whole, to the other side.

- The youth is the fuel of every social or political movement, and we in the FPM did not take good care of our own fuel, the FPM youth. Unlike almost all the other parties, I rarely met a local organization which had a youth responsible or structure that met regularly. That led us to have almost zeroed appealing effect among the younger population, especially with the lack of social events dedicated to youngsters. And more importantly, our youngsters lacked of general socio-political knowledge and found themselves defenseless in any political debate they found themselves drawn into, whether it was about our slogans, positions or our controversial allies. They weren’t aware of the reality of what was happening around them and were easily affected by the massive propaganda that was driven against the FPM.

- Elections wise, our electoral machine was one of the biggest volunteering machine that ever operated in Lebanese history, but it had many weaknesses and we couldn’t take advantage of its size as we really should have done. Our team was a well dedicated one and worked in a very organized way in organizing the elections on a logistical and statistical level. But unfortunately, in Lebanon, the elections are not just that. We planned and organized our elections but we did not “work” our elections out (a common Lebanese term). If we observe the way other parties worked, regardless of the immoral duties they had, and the lower level of organization their machines had (except the LF team that showed a high level of structuring) we can not but notice how they infiltrated the society and intensively spread their network. They knocked on literally every door, whether the individuals were considered among their supporters or not, worked hard to get every support they could in every possible way and did not let go of any potential electors even if they were among the forgotten names on the electoral lists. We were not up to the task this time and our job was limited on counting names instead of meeting people and talking them through to try to pass on our principles and thoughts.

- Another main mistake we made on a higher level is that we did not protect our slogans enough, which led our opponents to build most of their campaign (if not all of it) on the ambiguity and weakness of our campaign’s main titles. Just like when the FPM signed the paper of understanding with Hezbollah, the public opinion wasn’t prepared enough in order to assimilate the meanings and purposes of our generalized slogans. For example, we should have spread the main lines of what we called “the third republic” long enough before throwing that slogan to the people in our statements, our media and on the electoral billboards all over the country. We should have previewed that the majority of the people do not seek and search for the real meanings of our titles and many of them do not wait for our leaders to explain what they really stand for after being attacked by the other party. Many were driven to believe what the others said about our slogans and many others made their own ideas about them.

- Finally, a very personal opinion that many others would disagree with, is that we shouldn’t have put ourselves in such a defensive position. Instead of concentrating on the other party’s flaws and organize our campaign and attacks on their political and financial positions that led the country to where it is now, we found ourselves defending our (and our allies) statements and slogans. How much time we spent on TV screens replying to others attacks on someone’s speech or another’s view. Added to this, we have put ourselves in a “public enemy” position where we looked like the party that made everyone else its enemy. We were considered as the enemies of the church for attacking the patriarch openly, and then the enemies of the republic for attacking the president openly as well. I know that it was our right to do so, and I know we were just fighting back, but I think that we could have done so in a less obvious and open way than we, or our allies, did.


Many others can have other reasons on their minds, many other can even disagree with the ones we mentioned here, that is why it is vital in my opinion to discuss all this. Another section will be added soon about the main actions we should take in order to react properly and take advantage of the renewed enthusiasm that we are witnessing between our supporters and partisans.

[GeorgeY]

the best post i ve ever read and i think it sums everything debated in this forum
excellent work and keep it up

[Z VOICE]

Well thanks George :) but it appears that it's not that appealing for people to discuss lol
Anyway, I'm intending to add another part about how, in my opinion, we should react...
I just hope that it will get to as many people as possible..especially to the highly ranked ones :)

[Z VOICE]

And please guys... share this with as many people as possible!!

[GeorgeY]

Originally Posted by Z VOICE

Well thanks George :) but it appears that it's not that appealing for people to discuss lol
Anyway, I'm intending to add another part about how, in my opinion, we should react...
I just hope that it will get to as many people as possible..especially to the highly ranked ones :)

i think there arent much material to discuss for this topic since it is just a reading of what happened and it has been discussed a lot, and i akid akid akid 100% 100% agree with u
though i am waiting to read about ur solution for this mess hope it is half as good as this since i havent seen any decent solution given till now

[Z VOICE]

Most importantly my friend is for us not to feel down... we should consider it as a wake up call! we all know we didn't do much in the last 4 years... the FPM has always been unique because it generated from the people and not just from our leaders! for 15 years we made the FPM possible! and then after our 2005 "tsunami" we sat on our asses and just watched our leaders act... Everyone of us should feel involved in the fight!

Anyway, we will discuss it in details later...
Oh and btw... I surely don't like the "akid akid akid" part in your last post ;)

Regards

[Amirkani]

Originally Posted by Z VOICE

Most importantly my friend is for us not to feel down... we should consider it as a wake up call! we all know we didn't do much in the last 4 years... the FPM has always been unique because it generated from the people and not just from our leaders! for 15 years we made the FPM possible! and then after our 2005 "tsunami" we sat on our asses and just watched our leaders act... Everyone of us should feel involved in the fight!

Anyway, we will discuss it in details later...
Oh and btw... I surely don't like the "akid akid akid" part in your last post ;)

Regards

You don't need to come up with elaborate solutions... the red part is enough if we re-learn how to do what we used to do best.

We used to do much with nothing. Now that we have a lot, we tend to do nothing.

Sometimes appointed (even elected) leaders are more hindrance than help... they weigh you down. Natural leaders are those who take the initiatives... they're the genuine ones. And there is one in most of us.

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[Z VOICE]

I completely agree with you!
We're not talking or gonna talk about elaborate solutions or whatever...
The solutions will be in our actions or reactions! every one of us has a key...
We're only trying to make everyone understand wut went wrong, and how we're supposed to build again, from the "nothing" that we have!

[GeorgeY]

Originally Posted by Amirkani

You don't need to come up with elaborate solutions... the red part is enough if we re-learn how to do what we used to do best.

We used to do much with nothing. Now that we have a lot, we tend to do nothing.

Sometimes appointed (even elected) leaders are more hindrance than help... they weigh you down. Natural leaders are those who take the initiatives... they're the genuine ones. And there is one in most of us.

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i agree with u to some extent and i want to add because sometimes, even through experience in work or even daily life, u do something that u r happy with through leadership, luck ,etc... sometimes a person becomes enthusiastic or happy and he can do wonders but when he is happy with what he got or done he just sits on his *** and relaxes.

guidelines are very important and "history" is more important. it is always good to see what we made wrong because we cant make mistakes if we dont do anything, and more important is learning lessons from it. even if C&R got the MPs they promised we should still do the same.

and we dont need to re-learn anything when we learned it already, all we need is to remember (i think that is what u meant but just rephrasing it). we cant always use initiatives, we should use plans.

a person can have a million idea but when he reaches the 100th idea he would have forgotten the first 10. if u look at the post started here u can see almost all have been discussed in this forum but none has them all together joined like that. in 10 min u can read what u need 5-6 hours to read without getting MAD from the non-sense posts posted by some (and i dont mean ppl that are not agreeing or disapproving i mean the ppl that just post for fun or stuborness or even "nkayeh"). in my opinion this is something we need. summary, rephrasing call it what u like but many ideas joined together in a meaning full paragraph makes a plan and plans are what we should follow

[Amirkani]

Originally Posted by Z VOICE

I completely agree with you!
We're not talking or gonna talk about elaborate solutions or whatever...
The solutions will be in our actions or reactions! every one of us has a key...
We're only trying to make everyone understand wut went wrong, and how we're supposed to build again, from the "nothing" that we have!

Originally Posted by GeorgeY

i agree with u to some extent and i want to add because sometimes, even through experience in work or even daily life, u do something that u r happy with through leadership, luck ,etc... sometimes a person becomes enthusiastic or happy and he can do wonders but when he is happy with what he got or done he just sits on his *** and relaxes.

guidelines are very important and "history" is more important. it is always good to see what we made wrong because we cant make mistakes if we dont do anything, and more important is learning lessons from it. even if C&R got the MPs they promised we should still do the same.

and we dont need to re-learn anything when we learned it already, all we need is to remember (i think that is what u meant but just rephrasing it). we cant always use initiatives, we should use plans.

a person can have a million idea but when he reaches the 100th idea he would have forgotten the first 10. if u look at the post started here u can see almost all have been discussed in this forum but none has them all together joined like that. in 10 min u can read what u need 5-6 hours to read without getting MAD from the non-sense posts posted by some (and i dont mean ppl that are not agreeing or disapproving i mean the ppl that just post for fun or stuborness or even "nkayeh"). in my opinion this is something we need. summary, rephrasing call it what u like but many ideas joined together in a meaning full paragraph makes a plan and plans are what we should follow

You don't need everyone to understand. Everyone will never understand for you to be seeking everyone's understanding. You will be waiting in idle forever.

The only thing everyone will understand is "success". You succeed in attaining your goal, everyone will then understand and applaud you.

What is it specifically that you want to accomplish? What is your specific goal? It's got to be specific. Once you define your specific goal, put an implementation plan for it, get fixated on it (even if it takes decades) and just do it.

You don't need any leader's approval if the goal is part of their declared "vision". The problem with many is that they seek a leader's approval of their plan. That's when that leader starts weighing you down instead of helping you. Why? Because that leader understands from your request for his approval that you can't do it on your own and that you're asking him to do most of the work. Well, leaders give such stamp of approval to people they know and feel comfortable with or people with a proven track record or, unfortunately, even to people they personally "favor" and are trying to promote. How many of us fall into one of these categories? Not too many.

If you have an initiative, you don't need the leader's approval to start unless, as I said, you're expecting him to do a good chunk of the work.

Heck, on some initiatives I undertook, I received an explicit "disapproval" from the leader for my plans. I still went ahead with them saying I will take full personal responsibility for the failure of the initiative. Heck, how was that leader going to stop me if I wasn't asking anything of him? Well, he couldn't stop me. And the "disapproval" turned into a stamp of "approval and adoption" as the initiative started looking as if it was going to succeed.

Again, define your "specific" goal within the FPM overall vision. "Reforming FPM" or "fixing FPM" are too vague of a notion and they're not going to cut it. Get fixated on that goal, put a plan for your actions and stick to it.

FPM succeeded because of personal initiatives. We can't have 99% of FPM idle waiting for initiatives from the 1% in the leadership. Those initiatives might never come... or, if they come, they won't be enough.

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