After more than 10 years as a television host, Paula Yacoubian decided she could do more for her country as a politician.
She is among those hoping that Lebanon's first parliamentary elections since 2009 could be a political game-changer or, at least, deliver a blow to the current establishment.
“In Lebanon, you don’t only cover the news, you live the consequences,” she said. “In 2018, our country still doesn't have [24-hour] electricity and the garbage crisis is a scandal.”
The country has been facing a garbage crisis since 2015, when Beirut's main landfill shut down after running beyond its expiry date – sparking a protest movement that criticised politicians over their inability to resolve the issue.
Lebanon’s constitution stipulates four-year terms for parliament, but the current one has extended its own mandate twice. That means when voters go to the polls this May, a significant number of them will be casting their votes for the first time.
What remains to be is seen is whether new voters will choose new faces over established politicians – many of whom come from a line of government officials.
"This election is a Pandora's box," Ms Yacoubian told The National.
The 41-year-old is one of Lebanon's most recognisable television journalists, a status cemented by her selection to conduct an exclusive interview with Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Saudi Arabia last year after he made a sudden decision – which he later rescinded – to resign.
Although Ms Yacoubian had worked for a decade at Future TV – a channel owned by Mr Hariri and loyal to his party, the Future Movement – she is running as part of Sabaa, a newly formed non-sectarian political party made up of candidates drawn from civil society.
Ms Yacoubian criticised the current political establishment as made up of people from “royal families”, who rely on fearmongering to rally the support of their electorates.
“The new voters will vote differently, from their family, their parents, and they will vote for women and for human rights and candidates that will not use superstition and fearmongering,” she said.
In Lebanon’s most recent municipal elections in 2016, Beirut Madinatee – a civil society party established in 2009 – took approximately 40 per cent of the vote in the capital. The 10-point platform focused on improving quality of life Beirut, including the expansion of public transport, green space, and public libraries.
“I believe people who are running with the civil society movement are very good people – I believe they will do well. They don’t have a [chief], and they don’t have a spiritual leader,” Ms Yacoubian said, referring to many of the country’s politicians whose parties are linked to religious institutions.
“They need the support of the electorates, they cannot disappoint us or fail,” she said. “Because if they do, they will not be elected again.”
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Also this year, there is hope that the election will change the demographics of parliament. Women are 111 of the 976 candidates registered to run in the election – slightly more than 10 per cent.
Currently, of the 128 MPs, only four are women.
But Jessica Azar, 31, another TV journalist who is running for the upcoming election, said she did not expect a significant increase in female representatives.
“If we want to be realistic, all statistics show [the new parliament] will not exceed five or six women for the main reason that some big parties, who talk day and night about women’s rights, did not bother themselves to nominate a female candidate,” said Ms Azar, who has been working at Lebanese channel MTV for nine years.
In addition to Ms Azar and Ms Yacoubian, at least a half dozen journalists, mostly women, are standing in the election, including veteran newspaper correspondent and The National columnist Raghida Dergham, who is running for a seat in Beirut's second district.
In contrast to Ms Yacoubian, Ms Azar is running with the Lebanese Forces, an established party that grew out of one of the largest militias in Lebanon’s 1976-1990 civil war.
She said that it was more important to have new faces elected to parliament, whatever the party.
“Change can’t be made by politicians who ruled the country for decades,” she said.
The dysfunction of state institutions is not the only issue motivating new candidates.
Ms Azar is acutely aware of what rights activists have identified as a growing trend of prosecutions against journalists in Lebanon.
Jamil Al Sayyed, the former chief of Lebanon’s General Security agency, threatened to sue Ms Azar for libel this year after she re-tweeted another journalist’s tweet asserting that Mr Al Sayyed had “mischief on his hands”.
“Protecting journalists with new laws will be for sure one of my priorities if I will have the chance to be part of the new parliament,” Ms Azar said. “Freedom of the press is a shared and sacred commitment.”
Ms Yacoubian said that regardless of the results, she has given up journalism for politics.
“If I can help the civil society movement, give them a voice, and try to be on the right side of history to help my country and the future of my son, I thought that would be a very noble cause,” Ms Yacoubian said.
“Every day I’m more convinced I’m doing the right thing and that people believe in us.”
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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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.”
Generational responses to the pandemic
Devesh Mamtani from Century Financial believes the cash-hoarding tendency of each generation is influenced by what stage of the employment cycle they are in. He offers the following insights:
Baby boomers (those born before 1964): Owing to market uncertainty and the need to survive amid competition, many in this generation are looking for options to hoard more cash and increase their overall savings/investments towards risk-free assets.
Generation X (born between 1965 and 1980): Gen X is currently in its prime working years. With their personal and family finances taking a hit, Generation X is looking at multiple options, including taking out short-term loan facilities with competitive interest rates instead of dipping into their savings account.
Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996): This market situation is giving them a valuable lesson about investing early. Many millennials who had previously not saved or invested are looking to start doing so now.
