[Download] "Keeping It in the Family and Within the Sect (Lebanon-Report: Political Parties)" by The Weekly Middle East Reporter (Beirut, Lebanon) ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Keeping It in the Family and Within the Sect (Lebanon-Report: Political Parties)
- Author : The Weekly Middle East Reporter (Beirut, Lebanon)
- Release Date : January 05, 2009
- Genre: Reference,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 65 KB
Description
Most of Lebanon's political parties do not deserve to be called as such because, contrary to their counterparts in true democracies abroad, they are set up here to serve the ends of the leaders who founded them, and who will eventually pass them over to their children, a study in the Beirut-based influential daily AN NAHAR said on Aug. 17. "Political parties are the natural children of democracy. They develop with the development of the election mechanism in their home countries," the newspaper said. "While parties tended in their early stages to be formed within elected parliaments, most parties in the 20th Century, especially in Third World countries, came into being outside parliaments and then tried to win seats in them," it said. "In Lebanon, it is almost impossible to find people outside the founding family of a party leading it. If the leaderships of the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) and the National Syrian Social Party (NSSP) did not change hands among partisans, it would have been safe to say all Lebanese parties are family parties," it added. "The country has dozens of parties, including many with a handful of partisans. Almost all of them hold congresses and issue regular manifestos," AN NAHAR said. "The oldest surviving parties are the LCP, the NSSP and the Phalange Party, which were founded in 1924, 1932 and 1936" respectively, while Lebanon was under French mandate. The country became independent in 1943.