Ziyad Baroud

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Ziyad Baroud Biography

Ziyad Baroud was born on 29 April 1970 in Jeita, Keserwan into Maronite family of Selim and Antoinette (née Salem). The first of two children, Baroud and his younger sister Maha were brought up in a middle-class civil household with no political ancestry, where both parents were high school teachers; their father a senior grade mathematics teacher and their mother an Arabic literature teacher. Baroud completed his high school education at Collège Saint Joseph – Antoura des Pères Lazaristes from which he graduated in 1988. He then attended the Faculty of Law at Saint Joseph University in Beirut from which he earned his Master’s Degree in Law. He was admitted to the Beirut Bar Association in 1993.

Ziyad Baroud (Arabic: زياد بارود ‎ /z iː ˈ j æ d b ɑː ˈ r uː d / ( listen ) ; born 29 April 1970) is a Lebanese civil servant and civil society activist. He served as minister of interior and municipalities, considered to be one of the most powerful positions in the country, from 2008 to 2011 for two consecutive cabinets in both Fuad Siniora and Saad Hariri’s governments.

From 1993 to 1996, Baroud worked as a trainee lawyer in Beirut in the cabinet of Ibrahim Najjar, who later served as minister of justice in the same government as Baroud. While working in the office of Najjar, Baroud contributed along with a handful of judges and fellow lawyers to the drafting of a legal monthly supplement in An-Nahar “Houqouq Annas” (Ar: حقوق الناس) or “People’s Rights”, the first of its kind, designed to familiarize people with judiciary rights and jargon and promote the implementation and modernization of Lebanese laws with the aim of bringing more justice to society. At the same time, Baroud was pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Paris X in Paris, France, a school that also graduated Nicolas Sarkozy and Dominique de Villepin among other influential personalities. Baroud is currently preparing his doctoral thesis on the subject of “Decentralization in Lebanon after the Taif Agreement”, a topic that is one of his main subjects of expertise as well as one of the major lobbying points of his political agenda.

Ziyad Baroud is one of the staunchest and most active experts on electoral law reform in Lebanon. In March 1996, Baroud founded along with other activists the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE), an independent, nonprofit organization specialized in the study of elections and electoral laws’ impact on democracy. The subject of elections and electoral law reform will become another forte of Ziyad Baroud’s life and political agenda. In 2004, Baroud was elected Secretary General of LADE to lead a group of more than 1,300 domestic electoral observers during the 2005 elections. In 2006, he was chosen to serve as a board member of the Lebanese chapter of Transparency International (LTA). In 2005–2006, he was commissioned by the Prime Minister of the Republic Fuad Siniora along with eleven others to serve on a blue-ribbon commission headed by Former Minister Fouad Boutros to propose a draft for electoral law reform, this commission came to be familiarly known as the “Boutros Commission”.

Baroud worked as a research associate at the “Lebanese Center for Policy Studies”, a Beirut-based think tank of which he is a board member today. LCPS aims to provide researched, politically neutral guidelines to serve policymaking. Baroud also consulted with the UNDP on local governance and decentralization from 2001 to 2008. He is currently the chairman of the “Governmental Committee of Decentralization” (Ar: اللجنة الخاصة باللامركزية), knowing that the topic of decentralization happens to be his Doctorate Thesis subject.

For several years, the Civil Campaign for Electoral Reform (CCER), a broad alliance for civil society associations founded in 2005 by Baroud among others, was demanding that the parliament hold parliamentary elections over the course of one day. Although the Administration and Justice parliamentarian commission wanted to try and hold the 2009 elections over two days for security reasons, Baroud made great efforts to resolve all logistical difficulties in order to hold the elections in one day.

Baroud served as Minister of Interior and Municipalities under two consecutive cabinets. The first cabinet led by Prime Minister Fuad Siniora in the 70th national unity government which lasted from 11 July 2008, until November 2009. Baroud successively served for a second term under Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s cabinet which lasted from 9 Nov 2009 to 13 June 2011, though he had resigned on 26 May 2011.

Following the deadly clashes of May 2008, on 21 May 2008, figures from both the opposition and majority signed the Doha Agreement under the auspices of Qatar’s foreign minister and prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, finally diffusing an 18-month crisis. The Doha negotiations resulted in the long-awaited election of General Michel Sleiman as President of the Lebanese Republic and the formation of the 70th national unity government led by Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, composed of 30 ministers distributed among the majority (16 ministers), the opposition (11 ministers) and the president (3 ministers).

One famous anecdote, which was popularized by a blog, relates a December 2009 traffic incident describing Baroud’s hands-on approach. It was the month of holidays, and Baroud was caught in one of the traffic jams as police tried to get a handle on the situation marking off roads that were to be closed for the following day’s Beirut marathon. “Instead of sitting in his blacked out Mercedes – as you can bet dozens of other big cheeses and probably a handful of the political class were – Baroud took matters to hand. The Interior Minister, much to the obvious chagrin of his bodyguards, got out of his car, rolled up his shirtsleeves and started directing traffic himself.” As for his reputation within the ranks of officials, Baroud holds high esteem in the eyes of many decision makers in the country. Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai once described Baroud as “a national minister and the hope for every Lebanese person. […] Nobody can relinquish him.”

The elections results, though acknowledged transparent and constitutional by both the Carter Center and the European Union, caused turmoil and resistance on behalf of the 8 March blockade who once again were not happy with the minority stake they would have in the cabinet. Lebanon stayed without a functioning government for the duration of four months, a time that was ridden with political wrangling over the formation of a national unity government. Eventually, the two sides finally agreed on the assignment of portfolios after concessions were made. Fifteen ministers were selected by the March 14 Alliance, ten by the opposition March 8 Alliance, and five were allotted to President Michel Sleiman. This formula denied 14 March from upholding a majority of cabinet posts while also preventing the opposition from exercising veto, a power which requires 11 cabinet posts (“a third plus one”). Thus, theoretically, the ministers selected by President Sleiman, considered impartial, hold the balance of power in cabinet with a swing vote on decision-making. Ziyad Baroud was once again assigned as Minister of the Interior for a second term on 9 November 2009.

The European Union, who also had established a mission to observe the 2009 Lebanese legislative elections, also issued a positive report stating that “the high level of trust in the electoral process was certainly assisted by the clear neutrality and professionalism of the Ministry of Interior in its administration of the elections, and especially by Minister Zyad [sic] Baroud himself.” They point out that this neutrality is however not institutional, since it is more likely linked to the persona of Ziyad Baroud, and therefore “cannot be guaranteed for the next elections”. The European Union’s final report on 7 June 2009 Parliamentary Elections can be found here.

Former US President Jimmy Carter with the Carter Center Observation Mission issued a report “[commending] the Lebanese people and the electoral authorities for the successful conduct of the 2009 parliamentary elections”. The report stated that “Minister Baroud earned the confidence of Lebanese stakeholders through his commitment to a transparent process.” While the process fell short of several of Lebanon’s international commitments, most notably secrecy of the ballot, they stated that “it was conducted with enhanced transparency.” The report also commended the high levels of voter participation as well as the “high level of professionalism being exhibited by polling staff in most of the stations visited.” The Carter Center final report can be found here.

The 2009 Parliamentary Elections were consequently held over the course of one day, on 7 June 2009. The March 14 Alliance beat the opposition bloc of the March 8 Alliance winning 71 seats in the 128-member parliament to 57 seats going to the latter. This result is virtually the same as the result from the 2005 elections, yet the turnout is said to have been as high as 55%.

Baroud thus issued a circular in February 2009 decreeing that every Lebanese citizen was now free to cross out his/her religious identity from all official documents, and replace it with a slash sign (/) if they desire.

Baroud was also credited with overseeing Lebanon’s best-managed round of elections to date in 2009, which he orchestrated in one day instead of the conventional four weekends, a record in Lebanese history. This has earned him the First Prize of the prestigious United Nations Public Service Award where Lebanon was ranked first among 400 government administrations from all over the world by the United Nations Public Administration Network (UNPAN).

Ziyad Baroud has been granted several awards to date, in 2010 he was the recipient of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) Charles T. Manatt Democracy Award, which recognizes extraordinary efforts to advance electoral participation and democratic values. Baroud is also the recipient of the distinction of the French Legion of Honor or Légion d’Honneur, the highest decoration in France, ranking him as Chevalier, and of the Grand Cross of the Spanish Order of Civil Merit (Sp: Orden del Mérito Civil) rewarded for “extraordinary service for the benefit of Spain.”

As a result, that same day of 26 May 2011, Baroud announced that he would no longer continue his ministerial duties. He famously stated that he had just “witnessed, along with the Lebanese people, the breakdown of the Lebanese state” Baroud also said that he tried for three years to serve the country, but that there was no longer a reason to do so since the Constitution was being trespassed.

On 26 May 2011, Baroud resigned from office as minister of interior and municipalities in Saad Hariri’s government after an inter-party conflict developed between the Internal Security Forces and the Ministry of Telecommunications in Lebanon.

Baroud is also very popular with political bloggers, both local and international. Upon his resignation, a hoard of encouraging blog articles flooded the Internet in support of Baroud’s service and resignation decision. http://www.yasa.org/ As minister of interior, He supported the efforts that led to the new Lebanese traffic law #243 that was enacted by the Lebanese parliament in 2012.

In 2013, he was the lawyer of yasa (youth association for social awareness) and Roads for Life in a case against the Lebanese government to cancel a decision by the Lebanese Council of ministers to stop the implementation of new Lebanese traffic law #243 that was enacted by the Lebanese parliament in 2012. the conseil d’état of Lebanon approved yasa-roads for life case and cancelled the decision by the Lebanese council of ministers.

There are several conflicting accounts explaining what exactly happened the day that Ziyad Baroud resigned from his ministerial duties. The basic storyline, however, draws on a series of skirmishes that occurred in a one-day public showdown between different loyalists of the country’s two conflicting parties of 8 March and 14 March. The dispute involved two different branches of the Internal Security Forces who had violated Minister Baroud’s authority, and the Minister of Telecommunications Charbel Nahas. The dispute escalated into an 8 – 14 March diplomatic proxy war that was unlawfully fought on grounds belonging to Minister Baroud’s jurisdiction.

The event was highly publicized. Television stations had caught the entire showdown on cameras. Nahas then accused the ISF and 14 March of plotting a “coup d’Etat” against the state, and asked the Lebanese army to intervene. Head of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) Ashraf Rifi and 14 March responded by accusing the Telecommunications Ministry of launching a coup against the executive branch of the Lebanese government, their pretext being that the equipment at hand had been installed in 2007 by a directive ordained by the Lebanese government, and thus only cabinet-level authority were allowed to give directives to dismantle it.

Baroud is the first government official to ever officially give freedom of choice to Lebanese citizens about revealing their religious affiliation on civil registry documents. Although Lebanese new identification cards issued post-civil war do not state citizens’ religious affiliation, individual civil registry records still maintained the obligation for religious disclosure.

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