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By Madeleine Mezagopian

Efforts towards resolving a specific conflict peacefully in parallel to escalation in violent behavior are quite detectable throughout history. However, a country to witness simultaneously manifestation of democracy and escalation in armed conflicts and extremism is a unique development deserves to be underlined.

Amid the painful birth of democracies in the Arab World and supposedly the well-established democracy in Turkey being tested with its accompanying resort to violence and suppression by relevant new-old rulers, the Arab nation is witnessing a grand manifestation of Democracy, a democracy very much intact in an Arab state, Lebanon.

While some of Lebanon's political actors are affecting and getting affected by the proxy-war in Syria and some of its districts suffering from the ramification of this war with armed conflicts erupting between local actors on one hand and between local and Syrian actors on the other, democracy is further progressing rather than regressing in Lebanon.

The resort to diverse political strategies and techniques by different political coalitions in Lebanon to consolidate the status quo by some and to bring about changes and reforms by others simply reflects the well-established political culture among Lebanon's political elites and equally on peoples' level.

In Lebanon, the attempts to adjust with new local, regional and global political developments are paving the way for reconsideration of the elections law if not the whole political system with solid and perseverant attempts by some political forces to insulate the process of foreign, Arab and non-Arab, intervention and overcome the loopholes of the existing system which deprive Lebanon of its true independence.

Number of Lebanese politicians claim there is no state and no functioning institutions in Lebanon. The vulnerability of the Lebanese army, the quasi-autonomous status of some districts and absence of adherence to law by some extremists features Lebanon today. However, Lebanon continues to pioneer freedom of expression and preserving human rights and liberties which constitute core components of democracy. Last but not least, investing the Constitutional Court through appealing the decision of the House of Representatives to extend its tenure for another eighteen months to preserve and save Lebanon's democracy as underlined by one of Lebanon's political actors opposing the extension surely qualify Lebanon's democracy to represent a unique phenomenon which compensates partially for the frustrations amid the Arab Nation and leaves a window of hope for democracy not to abandon the Arab World.

Madeleine Mezagopian is an academic researcher, adviser and analyst in the fields of Conflict Resolution/Peace and Socioeconomic and Political Development. She contributed this article to Ammon News English.