The movement’s internal crisis…a dispute over identity

The former official of the Information Committee of the “Free Patriotic Movement,” Maya Kanaan, announced her resignation from the “Free Patriotic Movement” and linked her resignation to the political discourse that the “current” and its leadership began to adopt, which is not similar to the discourse launched by former President Michel Aoun. In a tweet she published, she considered that the head of the “current” is Gibran Basil does not put an end to the sectarian and isolationist rhetoric that has made him hostile and hostile to Sunni and Shiite political forces. Kanaan’s resignation comes in the context of multiple problems within the “Strong Lebanon Movement” and the “Strong Lebanon” bloc, which continuously lead to the fragmentation of the partisan situation.

But Kanaan’s tweet and her resignation reveal a new type of disagreement within the “current,” and perhaps it is more dangerous than disagreements of an organizational, partisan, or even interest-based nature. A large portion of those who resigned from the movement earlier had their resignation stemming from their major disagreement with Basil and his style of dealing within the organization or even Because of their objection to the political inheritance represented by the man, but this time the dispute takes on a character that did not usually reach the point of resignation, as it was the political discourse that led to Kanaan’s resignation in light of major discrepancies appearing on social networking sites among the Aounists regarding their positions and political opinions on issues. Internal and strategic.

Bassil entered the “Movement” into a spiral that led to the loss of the popular base. At the moment of complete agreement with “Hezbollah,” and for presidential reasons, the leadership of the “Movement” decided to agree with the “Lebanese Forces” and the “Future Movement” after years of disagreement with them, and this is what led to… The popular base is gradually retreating from all its previous political discourse, and some even forgot about the “impossible acquittal,” so the dispute quickly returned with Ma’rab and the Center House, and the Aounists returned their discourse to what it was before, and this was accompanied by rapid changes in positions on “Hezbollah” and an attack. Violence against the “Amal” movement.

Bassil disagreed with “Hezbollah” and changed his political discourse from it, and this was what culminated in the position on the battle that the party is waging today in southern Lebanon, as the position that was repeatedly raised by the Vice President of the “Hezbollah Movement” Naji Hayek became the official discourse, and this is what disturbed a wide segment of Aounists. Leaders and supporters who preferred an alliance with the party and carried a secular ideology thought that it matched the Aounist ideology that Aoun himself promoted, so major disagreements began to appear on social media sites between supporters, supporters, and partisans, who publicly disagreed over their position on “Hezbollah” and the ongoing war. Among internal party disputes and other issues.

It has become clear that the “current” is suffering from an identity crisis, as it no longer has a coherent political discourse. On the contrary, each group has its own opinion, even about what could be called “constants.” Accordingly, the loss occurring in political positions begins with the leadership and reaches up to At the bottom of the party pyramid, and if the organizational crisis can be resolved through dialogue and reaching common points, then the dispute over political orientations cannot be resolved except by adopting the discourse of this or that group, and therefore the “current” in the next stage will be facing a fundamental challenge that Basil must solve personally and publicly. Otherwise, the partisan reality will be greatly damaged.

More important than all of the above is that the organizational dispute between some MPs and Bassil took on a character related to “party identity”, so that MPs and opposition leaders within the movement began to adopt a political discourse different from the current Aounist discourse, and then the dispute will become organizational and political at the same time, which will give it legitimacy. Doubling and making it more dangerous for the survival of the “current” in its current form.