By Mark M. Shdeed – Medium.com – 29/4/2025
For too long, Lebanon has labored under the weight of a centralized system never crafted to reflect the true character of its people. Born of conflict and frozen by compromise, our political structure has delivered paralysis instead of progress — eroding not only public trust, but the very foundations of the republic.
Lebanon’s diversity is not its burden — it is its strength. But when every community is forced into a rigid, top-down framework that disregards identity, culture, and locality, diversity turns into division.
What Lebanon needs is not more control from the center — it needs a revival of constitutional self-rule. It needs a political order rooted in ethnogeographic federalism: one that aligns governance with the geography, history, and identity of its people. Such a system would allow each region — Christian, Sunni, Shia, and Druze — to govern itself according to its own values, needs, and priorities. No community would be bound by laws crafted for another. No sect would live under the constant anxiety of being ruled by the demographic majority of another.
Federalism offers a way out of the zero-sum politics of sectarianism. It replaces identity politics with performance-based accountability. It rewards competence over confession. It empowers citizens to choose leaders based on merit — not patronage.
Lebanon’s current model is a relic of the civil war — not built to secure liberty or justice, but to preserve a fragile balance between sectarian elites. In this framework, the central government is not a neutral guarantor of the common good — it is a prize to be captured. Ministries become fiefdoms, public institutions become vehicles of private gain, and the average citizen is left powerless, unrepresented, and unheard. This is what happens when government drifts too far from the governed. It breeds resentment, inefficiency, and, ultimately, disintegration.
But reform does not begin with sweeping proclamations or constitutional overhauls. It begins at the most tangible, impactful level: the municipality.
If we take the principle of subsidiarity seriously — the belief that power should reside at the most local, most competent level — then the path to reform is clear. We must start where governance is closest to the people: in the towns and villages that form the daily texture of the Lebanese life.
A municipality is not merely a local administrative unit. In a federal republic, it is the bedrock of national unity. It is where legitimacy is built, where services are delivered, and where civic trust is cultivated or destroyed. To revive Lebanon, we must first revive municipal governance.
That requires real reform — not symbolic gestures, but structural change. It means empowering local governments to lead, not merely to implement the dictates of distant ministries. And it begins with changing how municipal executives are selected.
Too many of our municipalities today aren’t serving the people — they’re serving political machines. These machines are often run by entrenched alliances of powerful families — loyal not to law or the public interest, but to the politicians who protect them. Why? Because these politicians hold the keys to their corruption, and in return, they get votes, control, and silence. It’s a mutual arrangement of mutual self-preservation — and the citizen pays the price. This system breeds fragmented leadership, entrenches clientelism, and denies communities real representation or accountability.
We need a new model.
Municipal presidents and vice presidents should be elected together, through closed-list tickets — ensuring unity of purpose, clarity of vision, and shared responsibility. But that alone is not enough. To preserve the organic bond between citizen and community, at least one member of the executive ticket must be an original citizen of the municipality — not merely a transient resident. This is not about exclusion; it is about rootedness. A republic must be anchored in place, history, and memory. Only then can it be sustained by those with a true stake in its future. This reform would restore coherence to municipal leadership while reaffirming the core republican principle that government must be from the people, by the people, and for the people.
Nowhere is this reform more urgent — or more promising — than in Beirut. Today, the capital is governed as a monolithic, disconnected entity — united in dysfunction, not in purpose.
And what happens when these corrupt alliances exclude entire communities? What happens if the upcoming Beirut municipal elections sideline Christian representation altogether? How can predominantly Christian neighborhoods feel any sense of belonging to a municipality that no longer reflects their voice, their identity, or their history?
We are in a dire need for structural change — real, principled, constitutional reform that restores accountability, ensures representation, and rebuilds trust in our institutions.
To lead Lebanon’s federal transformation, Beirut must become the flagship of subsidiarity in action. The capital should be reorganized into three self-governing, demographically cohesive municipalities — each reflecting its own cultural and historical identity. The Beirut Central District (Solidere) would remain the unified civic and national core.
Each of the three municipalities would elect its leadership through the closed-list executive system and exercise full municipal authority — from infrastructure and education to zoning and taxation.
These municipal reforms are not the end goal — they are the beginning of a broader transformation. If we can demonstrate that subsidiarity works in Beirut, we can replicate the model across the nation. Local governments can form federated regions. Those regions can become the pillars of a renewed federal republic — one that governs Lebanon’s diversity not with fear or force, but with dignity and design.
We must begin with subsidiarity. We must renew our faith in local self-government. And we must reform the laws that shape our municipalities — especially how their leaders are chosen and where their authority begins. It is time to recognize that the municipality — not the ministry — is the true foundation of political life.
Lebanon will not be restored from the presidential palace. It will be rebuilt from the public square. The future of the republic begins in the municipality.
It’s time to end our Cold Civil War.
It’s time to restore the republic — one municipality at a time.