This is it; the final leg of the election campaign and the expats are flocking in:
Lebanese expatriates have started arriving in Beirut to vote in crucial parliamentary elections that could decide the future of the country.
According to the Qatari newspaper:
…planes were arriving in Beirut full of expatriates from different parts of the world to vote in next Sunday’s elections.
“Most of the passengers are coming from the nearby Gulf states,” [an official at Beirut’s international airport] said without giving details about the expatriates’ electoral allegiance.
Curious. How would an official at the airport know a person’s electoral allegiance? It doesn’t seem that he told the journalist, “I have no idea” or “how would I know” but instead said “I can’t tell you”.
I bet you he said ‘I can’t tell you.’ Every time I ask anyone on the street ‘what’s going on?’ when a road is blocked or whatever, they never say ‘i don’t know’, they always say ‘i can’t tell you.’ I guess they like to have a feeling of authority or something.
I agree. Throw any Lebanese in front of a journalist and they become the authority on anything from armadillos to zephyrs.