A few days ago, a Lebanese law student at one of Beirut’s universities posted on her Facebook page, “I think we can no longer find the word ‘election’ anywhere, except in the dictionary. Perhaps it is just a word from an ancient and obsolete language. At best, we might come across it in the courses we took about constitutional law, but it is definitely a strange practice for Lebanon!”

The student was referring to a commonplace phenomenon in Lebanon these days. The presidency has been vacant since May 25, and the parliament has failed to elect a new president. Instead, on Nov. 5, that same parliament decided to pass a law that extended its term for 31 months, to end June 20, 2017. In May 2013, the parliament had extended its term that was supposed to end in June 2013 for 17 more months. By doing so, it canceled the parliamentary elections that were supposed to be held last spring and ensured a complete four-year term for its MPs elected in 2009.

Just like the parliamentary and presidential elections, the student elections were also suspended by the administrations of some Lebanese universities, claiming that the security situation and the political disputes among students prevent them to choose their student council representatives.

This scene, which reflects the paralysis of political and democratic life in Lebanon, is highly paradoxical. To begin with, the countries surrounding Lebanon, despite their unstable security situation, far worse than Lebanon’s, have witnessed a series of remarkable electoral processes. Regardless of whether they were valid or safe or whether the international or local community recognized their results, they still took place. Syria, which has been struggling with a violent war for three years now, held parliamentary and presidential elections, as did Iraq. Even Libya, which is in chaos, called on its citizens to vote in unprecedented elections.