The people want but...

A friend living abroad asked me:
• The recent demonstrations by the Lebanese people against the overthrow of the regime mean that they are directed against a president who has ruled for a long time and it is time for him to leave, as happened in many Arab countries.
I answered her:
The reality is that there is no President of the Republic of Lebanon, and this position has been vacant for more than a year and four months, and one of the demands of the Lebanese people in the movements they have undertaken is to elect a president.
She replied:
• It seems that the authority in Lebanon is limited to the Prime Minister, like the United Kingdom, and the people want to out him.

I said to her:
- The fact is that Prime Minister Tammam Salam became Prime Minister a few months ago, and in the absence of a President of the Republic, any decision issued by the Council of Ministers must be signed by the twenty-four ministers, so there is no monopoly or limitation of powers in the hands of Prime Minister Salam.

She said, "So the people are objecting to the decisions of the House of Representatives." I told her that the House of Representatives is not currently in session, as the people are no longer able to count the number of sessions to which the representatives were called to elect a president for the republic that were not held.
• So she said, “Then who are the people objecting to?”

I said that the people are suffering from a political class that is imposing on the reins of power and dividing up shares and favoritism among themselves. Corruption has struck all sectors of the state until it has become a culture and a reality that citizens deal with on a daily basis, until the waste crisis came and filled every corner of this beautiful country to show the extent of the failure of this political class in managing any file, even the simplest files. After the power and water outages, high prices and unemployment, and the rampant corruption in all sectors and the emigration of children, the waste crisis came to crown these crises and to be the last straw that overflowed the patience of the Lebanese citizen. My friend said: But they say that this movement is being driven by foreign parties. I said to her:

- No one can reveal the extent of patriotism of each individual who took to the streets, but the reality is that all the demands that people demanded in the protests were justified. Is it possible that we are a people who think daily about how to get water and electricity and how to remove the garbage from in front of our homes? People demanded their rights after they got tired of the political divisions between March 8 and March 14, and in the end the people discovered that this divided political class agreed on them. The people got tired of the faces, slogans, divisions and wars and took to the streets to demonstrate in order to live with dignity after the Lebanese people suffered for many years from wars and all kinds of living crises. The people are revolutionary and frustrated, but they are not facing one tyrant, but rather many of them. Will they be able to make their voices heard and impose their desires?

The people want to live away from political, sectarian and religious divisions. They want to live with dignity, enjoying their most basic rights.
The people want... but is anyone listening?