In its issue of today, Al Akhbar newspaper drew attention to student elections absent for 9 successive years at the state-run Lebanese University (LU). Despite the unjustified suspension, Al Akhbar wrote, some student councils at various branches of the LU are elected every year influenced by ‘favoritism’ and 'nepotism', the Lebanese style. The irony, the newspaper said, is that the overwhelming majority of the ‘heirs’ in the councils are males, or as some female students like to describe as ‘male supremacy’, while noting that the intensity of dominance varies from one university to another. The newspaper pointed out that in the last university elections before the ‘comatic’ disruption, the percentage of females did not exceed 25%, which reveals the size and nature of female student political engagement then. On the subject, Al Akhbar spoke to Farah, a female student at the first branch of the LU who has been appointed by the president of the student council to be responsible for ‘the sisters’ section inside the 14-member council. The most disturbing thing, Farah told the reporter, is discrimination and male favoritism, in addition to centralized decision-making and preponderance of males on the council membership. Members, Farah explained, are selected annually in an ambiguous manner in the absence of elections. “The situation will not change until legitimate and standard elections are made that impart female students the right to run for the council’s membership and presidency, thus breaking the status quo,” said Farah. (Al Akhbar, October 13, 2017)
