A Competency Framework to Select and Elect Candidates for a 21st Century Parliament in a Fragile State

This piece is an attempt to suggest a checklist of competencies that could hopefully contribute to discussions about the criteria for selection of candidates that is taking place between the alternative political opposition groups in preparation for the next parliamentary elections in Lebanon. It is inspired from my work experience with political parties and groups in Fragile States such as in Nepal, Jordan, Tunisia, Iraq and Lebanon. It is also based on my lessons learned as a Beirut District I candidate in the 2018 elections.

In this piece, I am not tackling traditional and conservative political parties' selection of candidates, knowing that it is mainly based on the candidate's loyalty to the sectarian leader, their size of wealth to fund the party, or their ability to mobilize constituencies based on communitarian identities. The main focus is rather on the alternative or progressive political opposition groups who aspire to present a different model of democratic practices through their candidates selection process and eventually in Parliament.

Defining The Fragile State

Since the political context is a determinantal to defining the competencies that need to be present in prospective parliamentarians, it is important to agree on the definition of a Fragile State. It is characterized by three core gaps: security gap, capacity gap, and legitimacy gap (Albertson and Ashley, 2017). The Failed State also carries high levels of inequalities, social tensions, weakened state institutions, a deep-rooted informal policy making processes, identity-based political competition, and an oligarchical model of governance. In addition, political opposition groups in fragile states are often scattered due to systematic splits, led by a handful of individuals with political aspirations, and have poor institutional mechanisms to guarantee their members' unity and accountability.

Identifying The Patterns

Common patterns can be observed in the process of selecting candidates. Some of them are good practices, but most are inspired from Western democracies which makes them less relevant in Fragile States. These patterns include:

• The National Program: The expectation of each political group to carry a national program that cements members and candidates around it. 

Knowing that neither data, institutional capacity nor political leeway is available to solve complex problems within a Fragile state, a national program ends up being a good statement of principles with a shallow wishlist of aspirations.

• Modeling Democratic Processes: The attempt to model internal democratic processes of candidates selection through some form of “Primaries”. 

It is a good practice, yet remains limited to the groups' immediate surrounding which is a fraction of their real constituency and so it remains symbolic rather than effective.

• Puritan Criteria: Imposing non-partisanship as non-negotiable mandatory criteria for all selected candidates. 

This is essential to ensure candidates' independence from traditional political parties. However, since political polarization is based on identities rather than membership, selected candidates might be non-partisan but, in fact, aligned with conservative parties. Similarly, former partisans who have since changed and are no longer aligned with their previous party’s politics could be better suited for the role than those labeled "independent". 

In 2018, I witnessed these negotiations as well as the drafting of candidates’ selection criteria. They revolved around integrity, non-partisanship and alignment on political principles. Effectively, that criteria was never truly respected because it cannot be measured objectively. It ended up becoming just a tool for negotiations amongst groups to guarantee a seat on a list here or there. This has demotivated many of the serious and competent contenders who did not want to find themselves victims to the labels imposed by such a framework of evaluation. 

Proposing An Alternative:

The following proposal of a Competency Framework is useful for:

• Candidate Selection: Replacing the criteria for candidates’ selection with a checklist of competencies to guide groups through their choice of candidates.
• Candidate Competencies: Defining expected competencies that are relevant and necessary for any parliamentarian who will take responsibility in a Fragile State.
• Candidate Assessment: Providing citizens with an alternative assessment framework to help them make their choice when casting their vote for representatives in a 21st century parliament.

The framework is designed based on 3 competencies, each defined by 5 abilities. These outline what candidates need, once in parliament, in order to (1) address the gaps that make a Failed State, (2) be able to cope with the shifting realities of the 21st century, (3) differentiate themselves from the current archaic conservative political elite. 

Competency Framework

Political Savviness

The set of abilities necessary to navigate the power dynamics in the most innovative and efficient manner:

1. Citizenship: The ability to think, behave, and act in accordance with principles of human rights and within a national vision promoting social cohesion, away from discrimination.
2. Consciousness: The ability to make decisions autonomously based on critical judgment and in line with the principles of justice, equality and freedom. 
3. Leadership: The ability to align people around a common political vision and influence them to collaborate in order to achieve it.  
4. Negotiation: The ability to transform conflicts into opportunities for collaboration with like-minded allies and to discredit opponents when needed.
5. Alliance Building: The ability to build strategic and tactical alliances to advance one's agenda while maintaining the fine line between idealistic values and realistic conditions.

Policy Making

The set of abilities needed to strengthen formal participatory policy making processes, and build responsive and efficient state institutions:

1. Policy Formulation: The ability to read and analyze data, engage stakeholders and formulate policies based on a preset political vision and agenda.
2. Legislation: The ability to assess legislation based on data and preset political values, and accordingly decide to vote for or against them.
3. Governance: The ability to design institutional mechanisms that are capable, transparent and accountable to ensure effective and responsive public service.
4. Deliberation: The ability to critically and assertively debate policies as a vehicle to challenge injustice, oppression and corruption.
5. Crisis Response: The ability to design crisis response policy instruments to cope with security, social, economic, environmental and political risks.

21st Century Competencies

The set of abilities that equip candidates to cope with today’s fast-changing world: 

1. Integrity: The ability to comply personally and politically with the principles of transparency, responsibility and accountability. 
2. Innovation: The ability to develop innovative solutions to political issues that can positively impact the political system and culture.
3. Inclusion: The ability to listen, respect diversity and actively engage all segments of society in the political process. 
4. Agility: The ability to develop and implement adaptive, integrated and sustainable institutional system solutions.
5. Digital Fluency: The ability to use digital tools for problem solving, decision making and communications.

This checklist of competencies for the assessment of candidates could serve opposition groups in making their selection. It could also help citizens in making their choice to cast their votes for the most capable representative in a 21st century parliament. If such capable candidates succeed in winning a seat in the parliament and lead our path from a fragile to a stable democratic state, they could then build a collective platform for a legitimate opposition that is ready to lead the country through its transformation toward a different political system and culture.