Coffee & Politics: How the Constitution can help us overcome current political challenges

BEIRUT: Knowledge is power, and one of the Lebanese revolution’s victories is that it sparked informative debates and discussions that have made citizens more knowledgeable in the political sphere, giving them more power to contribute to constitutional reform.

In an effort to maintain this wave of political awareness in the Lebanese revolution, "Coffee and Politics” organized a talk at the Samir Kassir Gardens on Saturday to tackle the constitutional tools that can be used for change.

The main speaker, Layal Sakr, a lawyer and director of SEEDS for Legal Initiatives, drew on the existing strengths of the current Lebanese political system and offered a positive vision of what Lebanon could look like under institutional choices that can create a system that is open, modern, and fluid.

According to the Constitution, Sakr explained, members of Lebanon's parliament should hold binding consultations with the President to nominate a new Prime Minister, who would then be tasked with forming a Cabinet. 

“Many of us know that this movement is not only linked to people feeling a financial squeeze at the end of the month, it’s also about the societal context that is constantly challenging our environment,” an attendee said, “and we should learn how to transform that.”

Coffee and Politics is a community that informs citizens on legislative policies, municipality ordinances, and county regulations.

As Tracy Nehme, founder of Coffee and Politics, puts it, “the goal of the community is to promote the discussion of politics among Lebanese citizens in a way that can benefit everyone.”

During the discussion, Nehme expressed her satisfaction with the ongoing revolution: “All of a sudden, political discussions began taking place in every city, at every hour of every day, and each Lebanese suddenly became a citizen for the first time."