WHY DO WE WANT A PRESIDENT?

 You want a President, I want a President, all the Lebanese want a President. But, has anyone stopped to think WHAT THEY WANT HIM FOR? Suppose that tomorrow he is elected for six years, what will be the reaction of the citizens? There will be a sigh of relief at seeing the armchair no longer empty. This is fine and understandable.

 But, on the other hand, unless we decide what we want him for, matters will most probably keep getting worse by the day, AFTER his election. The Debt will keep growing by $15 million every 24 hours, and that amount will double in less than 10 years. Our environment will get worse by the day, people will keep being poisoned by dirty food and dirty water. Electricity will keep getting rationed and more expensive, water will get scarcer and more polluted, waste mountains and dumps will get higher and more dangerous, traffic will become a nightmare, public funds will keep getting dilapidated by 5 per cent of the population, while 65% of the people will be in the poverty group etc. etc.

So how would that President, whose powers were reduced to practically nothing by Taif, be able to improve upon these conditions?

 So, wake up my friends! You have been sleeping for 70 years. Is it not high time to wake up? Yes, we want a President, but we must know BEFOREHAND what we expect him to do?
• We want him to be the President who will tell to "eight" and "fourteen" to stop behaving like nasty children, stop their unending bickering and fights, and get down to brass tacks and hard work.
• That President ought to tell the entire Administration (deputies, prime minister, president of Parliament, ministers, director generals, and their staff) to get to work and prepare him within six months a fully detailed development Plan for this country, set up clear goals and objectives to reach, a clear cut calendar of execution, detailed and realistic financial budgets, and appoint independent monitors to ensure, AT THE END OF EVERY MONTH, what part of that program has been accomplished and why the other part was not? Reward the ones who did well and punish those who did not.

This is what we should want from our President. Can we dream of getting such a man? YES, PROVIDED WE ALL AGREE UPON THESE SPECIFICATIONS, BEFORE WE ELECT HIM.

Unfortunately, I have never read anything of the kind in any newspaper or heard it on any television channel. Nobody bothers to think about that. All they keep calling for is a President " who is 100% Lebanese". But what the hell do they mean by that? Nobody will be able to answer this question. Poor Lebanon, whose citizens get only the leaders they deserve.