Predictable or not? Jad Ghosn’s failure
The elections ended with social media favorite, Jad Ghosn, losing by 88 votes, against the Maronite Lebanese Forces candidate Razi al-Hajj. He would surprise the country by amassing enough votes to threaten the Armenian Dashnaq party leader, Hagop Pakradouni’s position.
After what some suspect is illegal political pressure, Jad Ghosn would lose his seat and later would humbly tweet “Thank you to everyone who supported, volunteered, and sympathized with our campaign”.
However, this poses the question that many are asking, was Jad Ghosn bound to fail from the beginning?
Underestimating the Armenian vote
The Dashnaq party went through distress this election as people were predicting their party to fail in Metn, the main stronghold of the ARF. This major fright is justifiable since Armenian votes this year would amass only 10,188, down from 13,000 from the last election in 2018.
And this happened with the ARF bringing in an estimated 2000 Armenians from outside the country back to Lebanon to vote by buying them tickets and handing out chalets to the families. And as is tradition for all old regime political parties, they also brought in the elderly and sickly to vote during election time, some even forced to vote with “help”.
Nevertheless, we can estimate that at least 3000 Armenians voted for the Armenian candidate from the Lebanese Forces list, or chose to abstain. A simple 88 votes are minuscule if you consider that there were 3000 votes up for grabs.
MMFD’s failure to capitalize on these votes might have brought their downfall Jad Ghosn was left to fight against people who did not even think about voting for him.
Bad campaign management?
Coming off from the last point, another massive blow for the MMFD was their push to have more of the younger generation vote for them. Many older citizens barely knew about their existence, let alone of Jad Ghosn.
MMFD was especially more active on social media and did not use means to target the general audience. Granted, many Lebanese traditional outlets did not let opposition candidates speak as much as they left the old regime representatives to do. MMFD got stuck with one prime representative, Charbel Nahas, who people already had mixed feelings for.
On the other hand, MMFD managed to build a cult-like mentality regarding their party, comprised of teens and young adults. This is why their following was shocked when their favorite social media activist didn’t manage to get one seat,
Their use of populism aimed at a completely false demographic that couldn’t vote, gave them an exaggerated idea of their true popularity in actual society.
Even if they are now claiming that they “expected to fail”, that doesn’t justify the lack of campaigning inside Lebanon.
A damaged integrity
While the lack of actual campaigning did harm their overall ability, their image was much more damaged by the Lebanese social elites, such as television hosts, Lebanese social media pages, and activists like Gino Raidy.
A somewhat unintentional barrage was sent against MMFD, which was successful in sullying their overall name. The lack of a hard stance against the current hegemonic powers would provide ammunition to many to label MMFD as an ally of the old regime.
A popular social media activist Gino Raidy would participate in slandering MMFD’s name as Hezbollah’s pawn.
Making MMFD lose credibility from the opposition voters. And giving the Lebanese forces party more credibility overall.
Waiting for failure
The purpose of this article was not to analyze the political position that would have helped Jad Ghosn succeed, rather it is to understand where the party fell short. All in all, MMFD had a lot of barriers to surpass, which made their probability to win very small from the beginning.
A lack of overall understanding of the environment they were listed in and a lack of representation due to either ignorance or inability left many of the candidate’s voices such as Jad Ghosn to be unheard to the general public and even misunderstood or misconstrued.
