'Cedar' revolutionaries want more reform for Lebanon

Stopping cars hurtling through Beirut's downtown, young protesters do something they could never do before: pass out flyers that urge Lebanese to cast a protest vote against the country's entrenched political class - including the leaders of this spring's Cedar Revolution.

A sedan with government plates squeals up. It's plastered with posters of Saad Hariri, son and political heir of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Serge Toursarkissian, a parliamentarian seeking reelection on the younger Hariri's slate, which swept all of Beirut's 19 parliamentary seats Sunday, barrels out.

"How can you tell people not to vote for Hariri?" he bellows. "Hariri's killing was a big crime, and the Syrians have left this country, and we should all go out and vote!"

But months after the Cedar Revolution, the movement ignited by Rafik Hariri's death that helped end Syrian domination over this country, Lebanon's government is showing few other signs of change. Dissatisfied with the elections, some are now questioning politics as usual - and, in some cases, the very opposition leaders who led their revolution.

The elections, which will continue for the next three Sundays, will usher in many of the same politicians who have dominated the country's political scene for decades. Though pro-Syrian politicians won't be as powerful as before, their continued political influence discourages many Lebanese who had hoped for more substantial change. Voter turnout in Beirut Sunday, the first in the four-stage elections, was only 28 percent.

But the popular protests had a ripple effect, and among the reverberations was an increasing willingness to challenge corruption, stagnation, and hereditary rule in Lebanon's government. Outside government circles, a growing civil society movement is now pushing for democratic reforms.

"Lebanon has changed in an interesting way since three months ago," says Rasha Jomaa, one of the young women debating Mr. Toursarkissian. "We would never have had the right to go down to the street and declare our opinions like this. And the topic of our group was a little bit taboo before."

Ms. Jomaa, a graduate student in sociology, joined the Cedar Revolution with fervor in March. When the Iranian-backed Shiite party Hizbullah held a pro-Syrian rally, Jomaa and other young people joined a massive counterdemonstration. After the rally, she went to a tent city where protesters were gathered and she stayed all night.

But as days in the tent city wore on, Jomaa saw "people-power" slowly giving way to party politics. Party officials would send out mass text messages instructing the revolutionaries when to gather, what to wear, and who to support. "They were dominated," she says. "They could not be frank and open for Lebanon."

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