LEBANESE “KINGCHESS” INTRIGUE
The regional issue of building interstate relations along the line of confrontation between the Arab Gulf monarchies and Iran has a decisive influence on the Lebanese political field. On the eve of the parliamentary and presidential elections in Lebanon in 2022, the indirect influence of Saudi Arabia on politics in Lebanon through the leader of the Mustaqbal party, Saad Hariri, has intensified. His statement about the termination of political activity looks intriguing. Both the Sunni community and its supporters from other parties in Lebanon are questioning their path in the current situation. In order to understand the possible turns in Lebanese politics, especially after an unprecedented wave of protests that swept the entire Lebanese society, the author undertakes an analysis of the political steps of Saad Hariri, starting from the period of the presidential ‘vacuum’ eight years ago. Regarding the election campaign on the eve of the parliamentary elections in Lebanon in 2022, several observations are being made, which boil down to the activation of the regional pro-Sunni tandem of the KSA - UAE in the Lebanese political field. Saad Hariri remains the key figure in this situation. The efforts of the Lebanese Supreme Mufti and the ‘Club of Prime Ministers’ of Lebanon, which are significant to the current Sunni politicians of the country, are considered as obvious support for him. The author concludes that the next round of Lebanese traditional political confessionalism with its pre-election ‘intrigues’ played out under control of regional powers is due. At the same time, the demand for a change in the political paradigm, which was put forward by hundreds of thousands of protesters across the country, was ‘nullified’, i.e., ‘reset’, and this was facilitated not so much by a series of cruel quarantine ‘lockdowns’, by the tragedy in the port of Beirut or by the financial crisis, but by the unwillingness of the main participants in the political field to something seriously change.