BEIRUT // An agreement between prime minister Saad Hariri's dominant Sunni party and his long-time sectarian rival, the parliamentary speaker Nabi Berri, to host a slate of candidates for Beirut's municipal and mayoral elections has effectively determined the outcome of the races before Sunday's voting.
Barring a profoundly shocking outcome of the polling, candidates selected by Mr Hariri's Future Movement and Mr Berri's Amal Movement will be victorious on Sunday evening, leaving the largest Christian opposition leader fuming that there will be no effective opposition to the dominant slate.
Michel Aoun, already bruised by his surprising losses last weekend in several districts thought to be strongholds, declared that his Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) would boycott the Beirut elections in protest that no Sunni Muslim opposition figure could be found to challenge Mr Hariri's dominance.
Mr Aoun had tried to persuade his Shiite allies in both Amal and Hizbollah to join the boycott, which would have cast an air of illegitimacy on the elections, as Lebanese tradition requires all major sects to at least participate.
However, Mr Berri, a frequent annoyance to Mr Aoun despite their nominal alliance, chose victory for his candidates in one of his most important areas of political support. Hizbollah, which has less support in the districts in question, tepidly agreed to Mr Aoun's request that it boycott the races by announcing a policy of neutrality on the lists in question.
Mr Aoun said after he failed to get Mr Hariri to agree on any of his demands for the FPM to join the list: "There is a tendency for dominating the capital and nobody accepts that the municipal electorate is larger than the parliamentary electorate."
For his part, Mr Hariri ignored Mr Aoun's claims during the announcement of the slate of candidates selected by his party along with Amal and a host of smaller aligned parties, including Tashneq, an Armenian party that belies its small size with huge influence over a predominately Armenian district in East Beirut. The announcement was made on Tuesday night.
Lebanese political commentators said that with the addition of the Tashneq party to the Amal alliance, Mr Hariri did not need to placate Mr Aoun to decisively win Beirut's various municipal posts.
But Mr Aoun's anger over being excluded from the Beirut alliance paled compared with his fury over losses in what had previously been the heartland of his support in previous elections last Sunday. Mr Aoun's favoured candidates lost in the northern town of Jbeil to Christian parties aligned with the majority.
However, the Christian opposition party did manage one upset of its own to offset some of the losses when it won in the Beirut suburb of Baabda, with substantial help from Hizbollah and Amal.
The results saw Mr Aoun immediately crying foul over what he described as vote-buying and corruption in Jbeil. "In Mount Lebanon, they raped the elections with Jbeil's results and, of course, Jbeil is politically important to us. When you know what really happened there, you won't care for the result," he said after a party meeting on Tuesday.
Mr Aoun also accused the government of causing the problem with mismanagement in what was otherwise considered an effective and incident free day of voting.
The accusation caused the president, Michel Suleiman, who is neutral in these races, to mildly rebuke Mr Aoun, saying that any complaints about corruption or vote-buying should be referred to prosecutors and not the media.
@Email:mprothero@thenational.ae
Leap of Faith
Michael J Mazarr
Public Affairs
Dh67
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Villains
Queens of the Stone Age
Matador
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Pakistan squad
Sarfraz (c), Zaman, Imam, Masood, Azam, Malik, Asif, Sohail, Shadab, Nawaz, Ashraf, Hasan, Amir, Junaid, Shinwari and Afridi
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MATCH INFO
Manchester City 1 (Gundogan 56')
Shakhtar Donetsk 1 (Solomon 69')
Short-term let permits explained
Homeowners and tenants are allowed to list their properties for rental by registering through the Dubai Tourism website to obtain a permit.
Tenants also require a letter of no objection from their landlord before being allowed to list the property.
There is a cost of Dh1,590 before starting the process, with an additional licence fee of Dh300 per bedroom being rented in your home for the duration of the rental, which ranges from three months to a year.
Anyone hoping to list a property for rental must also provide a copy of their title deeds and Ejari, as well as their Emirates ID.
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The specs
Engine: 6.2-litre supercharged V8
Power: 712hp at 6,100rpm
Torque: 881Nm at 4,800rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 19.6 l/100km
Price: Dh380,000
On sale: now
Founder: Ayman Badawi
Date started: Test product September 2016, paid launch January 2017
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Software
Size: Seven employees
Funding: $170,000 in angel investment
Funders: friends