BEIRUT — The political heirs of slain Lebanese leaders are poised to make a strong showing in June’s parliamentary election, keeping a tradition of Kennedy-like dynasties very much alive.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (2nd L) and Lebanon’s Interior Minister Ziad Baroud (C) meet with women working in the Election Media Center in Beirut May 6, 2009. Albright is visiting Lebanon on behalf of the National Democratic Institue, an international NGO, to monitor the upcoming Parliamentary election which will held on June 7, 2009. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

“I have the family name and now I’m forging myself a first name,” said Nadim Gemayel, 27-year-old son of assassinated president-elect Beshir Gemayel.
He is a member of a Maronite Christian family which founded the right-wing Kataeb or Phalange party back in 1936 and has remained at the forefront of Lebanese politics ever since, giving rise to the “Kennedies of Lebanon” nickname.

Both Beshir and his brother Amin Gemayel rose to the post of head of state. Beshir’s widow Solange is currently a MP but is not running in the June vote in the hope her son Nadim will take over the mantle.

Amin’s son Pierre became industry minister in 2005 before being assassinated a year later.

To complete the picture, Amin’s only surviving son, Sami, is also running for a seat in parliament in the June 7 election.

Hereditary politics has for decades been a part of life in Lebanon, where a system based on confessional, family and feudal arrangements remains strong.

At the Kataeb offices in the Beirut district of Ashrafiyeh where his father was blown up, Nadim said he sees himself as “the heir of (his father) and of a cause… I am faithful to all the sacrifices of the Gemayel family.”

Michel Moawad, son of another president, Rene Moawad, who was assassinated in 1989, has also entered the political fray, encouraged by mother Nayla who has served as a minister and is currently in parliament.

“I was 17 when my father was killed,” he said from the family home in Zgharta, northern Lebanon. “At first I didn’t want to come back from France where I was studying.”

Zgharta is also home to a rival Maronite family on the political front, the Frangiehs.

Candidate Sleiman Frangieh is the grandson of a former president of the same name. His father Tony was a deputy for Zgharta and minister before being assassinated in 1978 during Lebanon’s 15-year civil war.

MP Walid Jumblatt is running to keep his seat, having inherited his leadership of Lebanon’s mountain Druze community from father Kamal, a historic chief who was also assassinated during the 1975-1990 civil war.

Among the Sunni Muslims, Saad Hariri has taken over as parliamentary majority leader since the February 2005 murder of his father, the billionaire five-time former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

Only Hizbullah, the Shi’a political and militant movement at the forefront of an alliance opposed to Hariri’s majority bloc, prides itself on not mixing politics with family ties.

But its Christian ally, General Michel Aoun, has a son-in-law who is in the government as telecommunications minister, while his own rival Samir Geagea has wife Sethrida in parliament.

Candidate Nayla Tueni was a 22-year-old student when her father Gebran Tueni, publisher of Lebanon’s leading An-Nahar newspaper, was assassinated in December 2005.

She is running for the Beirut seat once held by her father.

“I had never thought of entering politics but I had to continue Gebran’s mission,” she said, seated in her An-Nahar office surrounded by portraits of her father.

Her grandfather Ghassan, considered a founding father of the Arab press, had several stints as minister and MP. He returned to office at the grand old age of 79 to replace his son in 2006.

Tueni’s maternal grandfather is former minister Michel Murr whose own son Elias is now Lebanon’s defense minister.

For many Lebanese, the political lineage has grown tiresome and there is growing discontent with the status quo.

“Anyone has the right to run for parliament but the people should stop following leaders and their sons and their sons’ sons,” said Nizar Wehbe, 24.

Fadia Kiwan, head of the political science department at Saint Joseph University in Beirut, said the new batch of candidates from political dynasties must above all convince their constituents that they can stand on their own.

“They must come up with new ideas because looming over them is the shadow of their slain father,” she said.

Reprinted from middleeastonline.