The Lebanese public went outraged after the news came out that Lebanese MPs decided to “skip the line” of priorities, being the health workers and the elders, and get themselves vaccinated.
In a country where “lawmakers” break the law, a reaction is surely guaranteed. Not that Lebanon has had little of that.
Social media was swarmed with people’s reactions towards the injustice that could cost Lebanon the funding of the World Bank for the COVID-19 vaccine, which could prolong the nation-wide pandemic even further.
Starting with the head of the COVID-19 vaccination committee resigning in protest, and the World Bank’s regional director for the Middle East calling out the Lebanese officials for their clear violation, the voices of the people followed in anger.
It is to note that the 28,500 doses Lebanon has received as a first batch can’t even cover half the number of the health workers who are getting exposed daily to the coronavirus, In fact, on Tuesday, Lebanon recorded 2,520 active cases among its medical workers.
And yet, over a dozen of the lawmakers decided they come first and attempted to do so on the sly, in the parliament building, away from the eyes of the media and the public.
They seem to truly believe that their safety and their wellbeing, for all what they have been doing to save Lebanon, are more important than the health worker community.
With the hashtag No Wasta trending on Twitter, people just went expressing their anger and frustration at such an open disregard to the rules and to those who need the vaccine the most.
Salman Andary, Sky News reporter, wrote in a tweet: “Why is it that Lebanese officials and parliamentarians get to decide when they want to become equal citizens and when they want to form militias and upper-class gangs? Who said they have the priority over other citizens?”
Mia Atoui, co-founder of Embrace, summed up the living experience in Lebanon with one simple tweet:
One social media user noted that Lebanese shouldn’t be surprised, considering the fact that the ruling officials haven’t shown anyway a bit of care to the collapse of the country.
Others blamed the caretaker Health Ministry for providing the vaccine to the parliamentarians and the minister Hamad Hassan for proving incompetence at keeping up with his own pledges to the public.
Talal Zeiden, Vice President of the Lebanese State Alumni Community, took to Twitter to poke fun at the World Bank organization for having truly believed that the Lebanese corrupt officials will respect a fair vaccination rollout.
Their No Wasta campaign couldn’t survive past a week…
By the evening, a new hashtag took off and started trending on Twitter, shaming the Lebanese parliament with #مجلس_العار, “The Parliament of Shame.”
In the same day that over a dozen lawmakers got themselves vaccinated, the presidency’s press office announced that President Michel Aoun, his wife, and 10 of his staff got also vaccinated “according to the rules.”
Meanwhile, his party, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), is campaigning against the Lebanese Forces for 2 of their MPs getting vaccinated, although one of their MPs got also vaccinated with the bunch of rule-breakers.
