❊ Does The Future Movement Have a Future?

I’ll be chiming in on Qifa Nabki’s (QN) good piece here talking about why Mr. Saad Hariri might be playing bad politics by staying away. QN argues that Mr. Hariri is playing by his father’s playbook in a sort of “let them miss me” strategy, but that it might fail because:

Miqati’s government — just by dint of being in the right place at the right time — will be able to take credit for solving the electricity problem, giving Lebanon high-speed internet, maintaining relative peace and stability while not compromising on the STL issue or crossing any Syrian red lines, and perhaps even introducing proportional representation

I’ve made the argument above before, but I’d also like to add some other points:

• Mr. Hariri himself is behaving like an angry young man, not a mature statesman. In comparison, Mr. Najib Mikati presents an appealing, calming alternative for Almustaqbal’s voters, especially those from Tripoli.
• Hariri the father managed to pull off the “let them miss me” tactic because he had a lot of accomplishments under his belt and had ruled for a long time. People needed a break to see the alternative for what it really is. The same can’t be said of his son.
• The elevation of Ahmad Hariri in the FM and the unfurling of the Large Saudi King’s flag behind one of Mr. Hariri’s speeches unveiled the FM as an in-your-face family fiefdom. That alienated moderates who wanted a more progressive and enlightened party.
• The FM’s media has become a circus of pettiness, spitefulness and clumsy, reactionary journalism with a strange fixation on the supposedly existential threat of the Wilayat al Faqih, a transparently scare-mongering tactic for Sunnis.
• The FM has been lacking in policy creativity and has been reduced, as Michael young put it, into “something of an annoying jack-in-the-box popping its head up episodically to deliver some statement or barb against Prime Minister Najib Mikati.”

Does that mean that the FM is doomed? That depends on one big wild card: What happens in Syria. If the Assad regime falters and Hezbollah and Aoun are weakened, Hariri might indeed return victorious.

But even that is not guaranteed. The gulf Arabs might be angling to weaken, not eliminate president Assad — witness the recent Arab league negotiations with the Syrian regime — If that is really the case, then, indeed as Qifa Nabki noted:

the Saudis may find it more advantageous to try to co-opt Lebanon’s new quadripartite alliance (Hizbullah, Aoun, Jumblatt, and Miqati) rather than supporting an electoral “war of elimination” against March 8th in 2013

The Future Movement has its work cut out for it. It has to realize that its voters shouldn’t be taken for granted, and — ironically given its name — leave the past and focus on the future.