The National quotes Rafik Hariri Center Resident Fellow Faysal Itani on the Lebanese citizens’ turn to sectarian political factions for solutions to their issues with the government:
But Faysal Itani, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Centre for the Middle East, said citizens were not just fearful of violence, but also sceptical that they could make a difference.
“There are not really any means of securing your interests in Lebanon without the ‘regime’, that is, the sectarian client-patron systems,” he said. “Citizens know this, and while they don’t like the regime either, they simply don’t have any better, practical, implementable alternatives, so they are paralysed by their situation.”