Independents confident of progress this time
A delegate at the headquarters of the Beirut The Change electoral list ran to candidate Nohad Yazbeck and announced her first five votes – the first of many, the official said.
Dozens of rival lists of candidates representing Lebanon’s established political parties, civil society groups and opposition “forces of change” took part in the weekend’s parliamentary elections.
As the biggest anti-establishment list in Beirut II district, Change had high hopes of electing at least two candidates to parliament.
Such a result would be double the number of civil society candidates elected in Lebanon’s 2018 contest.
As counting got under way on Sunday, voters eagerly awaited the results of an election that will determine the direction of the country well beyond parliament’s next four-year term.
Beirut II district has long been a stronghold for Saad Hariri, former prime minister and leader of the Future Movement, Lebanon’s dominant Sunni political party.
But in January, Mr Hariri announced he would not run in the election, nor would his party field candidates.
He called on his supporters to boycott Lebanon’s election process entirely.
Ibrahim Mneimne, another candidate on the Change list said Mr Hariri’s absence has left a vacuum in Beirut II that has reshaped the political landscape.
Newly formed opposition parties hoped that Mr Hariri’s decision to boycott the vote would be to their advantage.
“Of course, it will affect the results, but not necessarily towards us,” Mr Mneimne said.
“But it has liberated many voters who would typically vote for the Future Movement. Once Hariri was out of the way, they became free to make new selections.”
Lebanon has been beset by several crises over the last four years, making the current parliamentary elections a critical moment for the country.
MPs must negotiate with international donors for a bailout, pass vital economic reforms and select the country’s next president.
Sunday’s elections played out against the backdrop of a mass protest movement against Lebanon’s established political class that was born in 2019 as the first signs of economic collapse were seen.
A chemical explosion at Beirut port in August 2020 that killed more than 200 people increased the people’s anger and frustration with the ruling elite as officials tried to avoid blame for the disaster.
In October, sectarian wounds reopened and there were clashes in Beirut’s Tayouneh district, which sits on a civil war fault line, between Shiite supporters of the Amal Movement and Hezbollah against supporters of the Lebanese Forces, a Christian rival.
As Lebanon struggles to extricate itself from the mire of a prolonged economic collapse marked by severe electricity, oil and medicine shortages as well as high inflation, many citizens have hopes this election will at last herald change.
Some accused the entrenched ruling parties of being responsible for running the country into the ground.
Voter turnout has been low, with the Interior Ministry’s preliminary tally in the capital standing at 41 per cent – lower than a final voter turnout of nearly 50 per cent in 2018.
Mr Mneimne said he was undeterred by these factors.
Either way, “we know we won’t get a majority in parliament,” he said, underscoring the difficulty new anti-establishment political parties face in Lebanon.
Rabih Haddad, a political analyst and professor at St Joseph University, blames Lebanon’s complicated electoral law for the difficulty opposition parties have in breaking through at the polls.
Prof Haddad said that the electoral law, which was adopted in 2016, was “created by warlords left over from the war who created the electoral law to their advantage”.
“The electoral law is hopeless. It is criminal,” he said.
The rules were a compromise after elements of proposals put forward by the major parties were merged into a single law, he said.
Voters turned out on Sunday in high numbers in the Christian towns of Byblos and Keserwan and in Shiite Muslim areas in southern Lebanon that tend to vote for Hezbollah and its political allies.
Analysts said this meant that the next parliament could well be dominated by Shiite allies Hezbollah and Amal and its strongest opposition, the Lebanese Forces.
The independents said they were not put off by the prospect of polarised politics.
“Listen, we’re not going to get electricity overnight,” Ms Yazbeck said of the chronic power shortages that have plagued Lebanon since the end of the war and have become worse since the crisis started.
“We know what we’re up against. We are not selling an illusion.”