How parties are made

February 2004

There are no ready made recipes illustrating how political parties are formed. But there is one certain aspect that such congregations are born and grow up through a learning-by-doing process, or through trial and error.

The creation of a new leftist party that expresses the voice of several leftists who have been either expelled or have quit the Lebanese Communist Party, in addition to others who do not find themselves fit to join communist groups, is a splendid idea.

The sponsors of this idea, however, should keep in mind that political parties are bound to evolve and that there is no clear cut way of how to create such groups.

During the series of meetings leftist held to debate the worthiness of the new party, deliberations saw the division of these leftists into two namely propagators of abolishing the independent groups whose members should be the formative core of the new party and those who insisted to maintain these groups and wait and see what happens next.

The propagators of abolishing the groups should give the party chance for its natural evolution. Should the new party fail in transforming itself into an effective group, then perhaps a surgical solution like doing away with the already established and active groups should take place.

They should also understand that abolishing the groups is an irreversible decision that should not be taken lightly but should appear after a thorough process of thinking. Destroying the groups is way easier than deciding to rebuild them later.