Najm: Battling Quotas Worse than Battling Coronavirus
Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najm said in a tweet on Wednesday that fighting the system of quotas in Lebanon is more difficult than fighting the novel COVID-19 pandemic, as the cabinet braces to approve administrative appointments related to Banque du Liban and the Capital Markets Authority.
“Thirty years of clientelism and distribution of quotas between sectarian leaders resulting in: corruption in the state’s structure, $100 billion and more in debt, economic and financial collapse, despair, emigration and an uprising,” said Najm in her tweet.
She added that “sectarian balance is acceptable only on the basis of competency not on the basis of the most loyal.”
Quotas apportioning positions between the key Christian, Sunni and Shiite communities and between political parties have been key to forming governments in Lebanon since the end of the 1975 to 1990 civil war.
Sectarian quotas have become a defining feature of Lebanon’s politics.
The issue of the appointments has sparked a wave of political bickering in recent days. It included deputies for the central bank governor, a chairman and four members for BDL’s Banking Control Commission and three members for the Capital Markets Authority after which the finance minister would name a state commissioner to the central bank and a state commissioner to the Control Commission, reports say.
Source: Naharnet
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