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3. The Mirage of Change: Lebanon's 'Change MPs' Exposed

They promised to change everything. They changed nothing—and worse still, they turned hope into bitterness and trust into betrayal.

When Lebanon’s so-called “Change MPs” entered Parliament in 2022, they rode a wave of popular revolt against a corrupt, decaying system. For once, the Lebanese people believed. They were wrong.

The illusion quickly unraveled. Behind the fiery speeches lay an abyss: no vision, no coherence, no backbone. A fractured patchwork of individuals—some exploiting the “Thawra” (the 2019 revolution) to serve their own interests and those of their patrons—buffeted by egos, torn apart by infighting and mired in amateurism.

Even worse, they proved alarmingly vulnerable—complicit, even—to foreign influence. Cloaked in reformist ideals, several aligned themselves with external agendas flagrantly opposed to Lebanon’s interests. As a result, their credibility was shattered, alienating those who had placed their hopes in them.

The Lebanese people have begun to realize that “change” was little more than political shapeshifting, a relentless parade of appearances, tailored to what the public wanted to see.

But the worst lies elsewhere. Today, the judiciary is probing satellite organizations linked to some of these so-called “agents of change.” Opaque funding, foreign transfers, conflicts of interest—each day brings new and troubling revelations. It’s clear they’ve constructed parallel networks, fueled by dollars, atop the ruins of a country in crisis. They are profiting from the suffering of those who sincerely believed in them.

Their agenda is now unmistakable: to dismantle Lebanon’s intellectual, economic and political elites—and replace them with a new elite: themselves. Plain and simple. Whatever the cost. If it means destroying the economy, sabotaging the financial sector or obliterating what little remains of the nation’s institutions and stability, they’ll do it without hesitation. Their obsession isn’t the salvation of Lebanon, but their own rise to power.

The latest municipal elections confirmed the truth: they no longer represent anything. Disconnected. Discredited. Rejected. Their so-called legitimacy has melted away like snow under the sun. The promised change was nothing but an empty slogan, a recycled deception wrapped in a pseudo-modern guise.

They will not survive the next parliamentary elections. They will leave exactly as they came: carried by a collective illusion, only to be swallowed by their own emptiness.

Meanwhile, Lebanon continues to wait for its true reformers, those who do not exploit misery as a stepping stone, who do not sell their mandate to the highest bidder and who do not betray their people.

As La Rochefoucauld said, “The worst kind of deceit is the one that cloaks itself in virtue.”
The masks are falling.