THE 2019 – 2021 LEBANON CIVIL PROTESTS: CONCISE COMPARISON WITH MOLDOVA AND BELARUS PEACEFUL RALLIES AND ASSEMBLIES

Abstract

Lebanon, a unique, poly-confessional Eastern Mediterranean country of Arab origin with a long Phoenician history, has seen yet another wave of unrest in the last two years. Around the same period, widespread protests were aroused in two post-soviet countries in Eastern Europe, expressing their outrage at the falsification of vote tallies, corruption, and the political motivation of their governments in the face of a worsening economic situation. The aim of the study was to find out the common and distinctive elements of these civil rallies and assemblies, as well as to predict their possible impact on interregional relations and geopolitical tendencies. The article may indicate some unique features due to the lack of fundamental research studies on the theme rather than analytics and media reports. A concise comparison is made of Lebanon’s, Moldova’s, and Belarus’s situation with respect to their establishment, political and economic crisis, resulting protest actions. Some peculiarities were discovered following the interests of internal and external political groups and their influence. A cautious prognosis was made in order to forecast some further developments in the situation around these countries, including the attitude of the key actors in the region towards the processes inside and outside, trying to tip the scales in their favor.