Elections 2022: On selling your vote.

Photo by Tarek Chemaly

Selling your vote. Well, let's be honest, can you have an election without vote-buying and falsification?

Short answer: No.

Well, ad agencies jumped at this. Leo Burnett teamed with Lebanese Transparency Agency (LTA) and FP7 McCann with Annahar. Each from a different standpoint.

OK, so LTA went back to the Lollar (term originally coined by Dan Azzi, which if I understood correctly gave his blessing to the campaign, but without Patrick Chemali's logo). Actually, tangible and physical prints/designs of Lollar (that the LTA dubbed as "currency of corruption) were introduced. On May 13, this is when there will be an ATM which will dispense such bills which will move from Dora, to Sassine Square and Raouche.

Annahar went with another idea - since votes will be bought anyhow - might as well advise the votes how much their vote is really worth (with apparently a smart algorithm which calculates exactly how much it is worth compared to fuel, food, education costs etc....). They even launched a website: se3erlsot.com (which translates as price of the vote).

OK, you did not hear this from me but... Do I smell Cannes Lions entries here?

Logi does a convincing comeback tour

Remember Logi? The Lebanese Oil and Gas Initiative? Well, they got themselves some heavyweights for their new ad. By order of appearance: Alia Moubayed (emerging market specialist), Dan Azzi (Global financial markets expert), Albert Kostantinian (Journalist and economic consultant), Pierre Saade (Senior Mena Regional Coordinator of Publish What You Say) - please note I copied their titles exactly as they were written in the ad, capital letters and all - and each of these protagonists came and sustained the case on why oil and gas is indeed the future of Lebanon... Provided of course (and these pillars and values were written on the palm of their hands) - participation (also could be involvement), transparency, citizenship, democracy, and trust were all insured (the last word was written on the palm of the hand of Diana Kaissy who is the executive director of Logi). Interestingly, without being falsely over-creative, the ad makes its point clearly and gets its message across. Of course, we all wonder in Lebanon at how much such initiatives actually procure real change on the ground. But Logi is apparently not here to play. Please see the ad here.

Is it so wrong for the Lebanese to live within their means?

Before anyone jumps the gun and says I am insensitive to other people's plight, I am not. Actually one of the resolutions I did lately was to be less generous and altruistic. Here's my gripe: I see nothing wrong with the Lebanese living within their means. I know families who'd go out to restaurants weekly now content with house meals, children realizing food done at home is just as good as take away meals they used to order absent-mindedly, a family within my circle is trying to sell one of its two cars, and the list continues.... There is a reason why classification is called socio-economic: it is not your money, it is your social position too. I am/was an engineer/economist/consultant/university lecturer/multimedia artist etc... I grew up within the spectrum of middle class - at times on the upper margin, at others down below. But we always made do with what we have. Maybe it was the war where you were forced to get creative with little, maybe it was my parents' ethics of "want not, waste not" (all while providing us with things we desired within their means), maybe it is my own strict ethos of saving money (all while indulging myself - yet I think I own the least amount of "things" when compared to people my age).
All this is to say, as Lebanon faces the perfect storm of several elements (the least of which is the Coronavirus), financial expert Dan Azzi was on TV telling people to use their cars less. The rationale being that the less fuel we import the better we are economically as a country. I have been living without a car since 2000, and have never been late to any appointment. I rely on the ever efficient mix of public transport and (lately since am outside the highway) private taxis and I save money in the process.
Perhaps the time has come for the Lebanese to face facts and admit they were living in an inflated bubble. The bubble has burst. Now is the time to "make do and mend".
We need to adapt to a new economic order, the faster we do it the better it is.