A crowd awaiting the results during the Order of Engineers elections in Beirut in 2021. (Credit: L'Orient-Le Jour archives)
After its breakthrough in the 2021 Order of Engineers and Architects elections, the protest movement born out of the Oct. 17, 2019 uprising could lose its majority.
This Saturday, April 15, like every year, five of the 15 seats of its council are up for the vote.
Today, the pro-uprising thawra list and opposition parties are only a distant memory in the syndicate— the largest such professional union in Lebanon. In the 2022 council elections, none of the five seats were won by the protest movement.
The president of the order is elected every three years. This year, current president Aref Yassine — a member of the thawra list — could lose his margin of maneuver if the traditional parties manage to regain control.
Haydar Akhras, a representative of the Amal Movement’s engineers and a former member of the order’s council, told L’Orient-Le Jour that “the Oct. 17 wave destroyed the order” financially. Amal candidate Salman Sobh is running for the presidency of the council’s sixth department.
For Jack Ghosn, the head of engineers within the Lebanese Forces (LF) and former member of the order’s council, it is the promises “that are impossible to implement” that have cost the protest movement dearly. LF candidate Samer Wakim is running for one of the three seats in the general assembly.
Firas Bou Diab, a former member of the order’s council and a Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) representative, said he believes “the protest movement’s group was not able to preserve the interests of engineers and to establish a dialogue between the various factions represented.”
Meanwhile, Bachir Hayek, a representative of the Kataeb party’s engineers, does not minimize the difficulties imposed by the economic and financial crisis. But he pointed to the lack of responsiveness within the council.
The main issue related to the elections for the protest movement is to release the order’s blocked bank funds, Hayek said.
“We must not leave room for the traditional parties. $400 million are blocked in the banks, they must be recovered for pensions,” said Hala Younes, an independent candidate from the protest movement’s “We Persevere” list at the order’s architecture department.
The order of engineers in Beirut filed a motion with Beirut’s Urgent Matters Judge, challenging BLOM bank’s decision to close its accounts and pay out the funds held in them in banker’s checks deposited with a notary public. This means of payment is disadvantageous to the customers who can generally only hope to get up to 20 percent of their value.
‘Cash cow’
The financial issues are at the heart of this new election.
Beyond the internal tug-of-war, the economic and financial situation has shaken the Order of Engineers, as it has every institution in the country.
“Because of this, we have not been able to do what we promised. We worked on the budget with the different currencies on the market, but we also solved many problems,” said Divina Aboujaoude, outgoing president of the architects' department in the order’s council, in response to criticism related to the mismanagement of the budget.
Since then, the council has secured fresh dollars from taxes on building permits and engineering dues, “which has solved the insurance problem,” said Hala Younes.
Younes added that for the traditional parties, the Order of Engineers was a cash cow because it was flush with money. “They had the means to control a lot of things, like through health insurance. So, when there was no money in the order, it was no longer interesting to them. Now that there are fresh dollars coming in, they’re coming back,” she said.
With the elections only a few days away, not all alliances have been made, whether among the traditional parties or the protest movement’s groups.
The Kataeb party has already allied itself with the LF and independent groups. As for the Amal Movement’s engineers, they said they will decide at the “last minute.”
Aboujaoude said believes the traditional parties are so well-rooted that it is necessary to remain realistic. “Change will happen little by little.”
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour. Translation by Joelle El Khoury.
