Only in Lebanon will French special envoy and former Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian come across a mathematical equation - unlike any seen in history - when he meets with some parties that are obstructing the presidential elections. The parties will attempt to persuade him that the equation, which is unprecedented in the history of mathematics, is actually valid.
In Lebanon, we have the duo of the Amal movement and Hezbollah party that doesn’t like sharing with anyone. It will present Le Drian with a long droning political explanation to convince him - without a shadow of a doubt - that the 51 votes for its presidential candidate of hegemony, Suleiman Franjieh, are actually equal to the 60 votes for the other candidate, former minister Jihad Azour.
The 12th presidential elections sessions revealed undeniable political changes, but the duo is insisting on denying that its candidate has received the greatest number of votes he could possibly ever win. Azour, on the other hand, has consolidated the minimum number of votes he can to move forward.
Le Drian kicked off his visit to Lebanon by visiting Ain el-Tineh, the residence of parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, the architect of this equation. Berri can be credited for squandering the vote of one of the lawmakers during the latest elections session when he persuaded him to vote for a candidate that does not have a chance of winning. He also squandered the quorum of 14 past elections sessions in a mathematical precedent in parliamentary life since Lebanon’s independence.
In all likelihood, the duo is prepared to waste more time in the hopes of achieving some part of its equation. Le Drian will face an arduous task with the duo in attempting to convince it that its calculations are wrong and that it is no longer the sole political heavyweight in Lebanon and the region. The October 17, 2019 revolution saw to that. It succeeded in weakening the political class that had been in power since 2016 and the June 14 presidential elections session cancelled the political outcomes of the May 7, 2008 clashes.
Indeed, Le Drian’s mission in persuading the duo that it alone is no longer the sole decision-making power will lead him to a predicament faced by Italian astronomer Galileo, who spent some of his precious time in persuading the elite of Copernicus’ hypothesis of a heliocentric solar system during a time when Earth was believed to be the center of the universe – a belief adopted by the church. His hypothesis led him to be summoned before the inquisition.
What Le Drian is unaware of is that the advocates of the 51=60 equation now believe it to be central to their local and foreign causes. This is yet another chapter in their series of constant victories that the duo always uses to persuade its followers that it is still capable of changing numbers and that it – the duo - will continue to be unchangeable.
Its pledges of victory have imposed themselves on the mathematical outcomes of the previous presidential elections. It is an indisputable ideological equation, whose believers have given it holy characteristics and tied it to holy victories. They will attempt to impose their views on any future equation and they will not hesitate in threatening internal and external forces with an inquisition if needed.
This situation will force Le Drian to carry out dozens of trips to Beirut to persuade the believers in the equation to change their wrong belief. The greatest concern is that the duo would take a long time to be persuaded to back down, the same way its regional sponsor took a long time to be persuaded that imposing its power with forces on the region is a failed approach. Such a goal needs a soft touch, which is yet unavailable to the duo or its regional sponsor that is trying to pick up the pieces of its regional presence by banking on major settlements with influential regional parties, to achieve through peace whatever it couldn’t achieve through confrontation.
From Galileo to Copernicus to Le Drian, it appears the vacuum will stretch on for a long time until the duo processes the language of numbers and the limits of its power.
