Lebanon

Lebanese President Michel Sleiman is one of the few heads of state who occasionally tweet themselves, signing this personal tweets MS, many of which are sent directly from his Blackberry. In November he conducted two impromptu late night Twitter chats @replying to a series of questions from his followers on Twitter and even sharing his personal email address: “@LAHOUDInaya Please send a detailed account of your problem to president.msleiman@gmail.com.” President Sleiman also tweets himself to encourage the national football team or to send Christmas and New Years’ greetings to his followers. The presidential Twitter account which began posting in English in 2010 became bilingual in early 2012 and started posting in Arabic. In February 2012 President Sleiman personally weighed in on the discussion about insults to the president: “One cannot insult the presidency, because the presidency is the rock on which the waves break-MS.” he tweeted. In 2010 Lebanese police arrested four students for having set up a Facebook page entitled: "We don't want a hypocrite as president.”

Najib Mikati is a shining example of how politicians should connect directly with their constituents via Twitter. Since August 2011 he has unlinked the account from Facebook and personally engages with his followers. He is one of the most conversational world leaders as one fifth of his tweets are @replies. The Lebanese Prime Minister regularly conducts impromptu one hour-long Twitter chats answering a range of questions from his followers. In November 2011 he organized a Twitter Q&A session with UK ambassador @HMATomFletcher, who as the Prime Minister put it: “Tweets ahead of anyone else!” Mikati is also sharing personal stories such as this tweet: “Seeing my grandchildren on "Skype" made my day! (#Grandpa #Family). N.M.” Initially his tweets were written mainly in English with occasional Arabic and French thrown in for good measure. Since May 2012 his tweets have been only in Arabic.