AFP
Hezbollah's opponents might rejoice at their loss of majority in parliament but Lebanon's packed political calendar now sets the stage for protracted deadlocks at best or violence at worst.
Sunday's polls passed without any major incident, in itself an achievement in a country which has a history of political violence and is suffering its worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.
Iran-backed Hezbollah is a major political and military force, described by its supporters a bulwark against enemy Israel and by its detractors as a state within a state whose continued existence prevents any kind of democratic change in Lebanon.
© ANWAR AMROA
Lebanese woman shows her ink-stained thumb after casting her vote at Sunday's parliamentary election
Hezbollah and its allies lost the clear majority they had in the outgoing parliament, despite a flurry of televised addresses by the Shiite group's leader Hassan Nasrallah in the week running up to the vote.
The biggest winners were the Christian Lebanese Forces party and new faces born of a 2019 secular protest movement, all of whom have a clear stance against Hezbollah.
"Old guard parties will seek to assert their political dominance in the face of the reformists who have entered parliament for the first time," said analyst Lina Khatib, head of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House.
© Mahmoud ZAYYAT
Hezbollah and its allies lost the clear majority they had in the outgoing parliament, despite a flurry of televised addresses by the Shiite group's leader Hassan Nasrallah in the week running up to the vote.
The biggest winners were the Christian Lebanese Forces party and new faces born of a 2019 secular protest movement, all of whom have a clear stance against Hezbollah.
"Old guard parties will seek to assert their political dominance in the face of the reformists who have entered parliament for the first time," said analyst Lina Khatib, head of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House.
© Mahmoud ZAYYAT
Supporters of Lebanon's Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah hold portraits of the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah
- Speaker election -
As of May 22, after the current assembly's mandate expires, the new lawmakers will have 15 days to pick a speaker, a position Nabih Berri has held since 1992 and is not intent on leaving despite reaching the age of 84.
By convention, Lebanon's prime minister position is reserved for a Sunni Muslim, the presidency goes to a Maronite Christian and the post of speaker to a Shiite Muslim.
Berri is a deeply polarising figure but all Shiite seats in parliament were won by Hezbollah and the veteran speaker's own Amal party, which rules out the emergence of a consensual candidacy.
The election will be a first test of how willing Hezbollah's opponents are to challenge the Shiite tandem.
The leader of the Tehran-backed movement's parliamentary group set the tone as early as Monday when he warned rivals against becoming "shields for the Israelis".
His words were a reply to Samir Geagea, whose Lebanese Forces have championed the case for disarming Hezbollah, and had laid down the gauntlet by vowing never to support Berri's re-election or join a unity government.
The new polarisation of Lebanese politics raises fears of a repeat of deadly violence that broke out in Beirut last year between Hezbollah-aligned fighters and FL supporters.
The L'Orient-Le Jour daily stressed in an analysis that Hezbollah's parliament majority in recent years had enabled it "not to resort to terror to impose its decisions and preserve its red lines".
- Government formation -
"The risk of a total stalemate is real, deadlocks are a Lebanese speciality," said Daniel Meier, a France-based researcher.
In Lebanon's unique and chaotic brand of sectarian consensus politics, forming a government can take months, even when the country faces multiple emergencies.
Between the two latest elections, two out of four years were spent under a caretaker government with limited powers as the country's political barons haggled over cabinet line-ups.
The latest government, led by billionaire Najib Mikati, has only been in place since September 2021 after a 13-month vacuum.
It was billed a mostly technocratic government tasked with guiding Lebanon to recovery, but each minister was endorsed by one of Lebanon's perennial heavyweights.
Whether any of the 13 MPs labelled as representing the interests of the 2019 anti-establishment uprising would consider joining a coalition government with that same establishment is doubtful.
"There is change in the balance of power but this will not translate in a programme for change because despite everything Hezbollah keeps its veto power," analyst Sami Nader said.
A quick fix would be to keep the Mikati government in a caretaker capacity until the presidential election.
- Presidential election -
That is the last but not the least of the major hurdles in the institutional calendar.
Due by the end of the year, the new parliament's pick for a president to succeed Michel Aoun, who will be 89 by then, was further complicated by the latest election.
He groomed his son-in-law Gebran Bassil for years but the electoral surge of the Lebanese Forces, the Christian rivals of Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, is a spanner in the family works.
Army chief Joseph Aoun has already been tipped as an alternative but talks could drag on.
"Probably we will have a long period of stalemate in the parliament," said Joseph Bahout, a professor at the American University of Beirut.
He predicted a tunnel of institutional deadlocks could delay reforms requested by the International Monetary Fund for a critically needed rescue package until the spring of 2023.
bur-jmm/dv
- Speaker election -
As of May 22, after the current assembly's mandate expires, the new lawmakers will have 15 days to pick a speaker, a position Nabih Berri has held since 1992 and is not intent on leaving despite reaching the age of 84.
By convention, Lebanon's prime minister position is reserved for a Sunni Muslim, the presidency goes to a Maronite Christian and the post of speaker to a Shiite Muslim.
Berri is a deeply polarising figure but all Shiite seats in parliament were won by Hezbollah and the veteran speaker's own Amal party, which rules out the emergence of a consensual candidacy.
The election will be a first test of how willing Hezbollah's opponents are to challenge the Shiite tandem.
The leader of the Tehran-backed movement's parliamentary group set the tone as early as Monday when he warned rivals against becoming "shields for the Israelis".
His words were a reply to Samir Geagea, whose Lebanese Forces have championed the case for disarming Hezbollah, and had laid down the gauntlet by vowing never to support Berri's re-election or join a unity government.
The new polarisation of Lebanese politics raises fears of a repeat of deadly violence that broke out in Beirut last year between Hezbollah-aligned fighters and FL supporters.
The L'Orient-Le Jour daily stressed in an analysis that Hezbollah's parliament majority in recent years had enabled it "not to resort to terror to impose its decisions and preserve its red lines".
- Government formation -
"The risk of a total stalemate is real, deadlocks are a Lebanese speciality," said Daniel Meier, a France-based researcher.
In Lebanon's unique and chaotic brand of sectarian consensus politics, forming a government can take months, even when the country faces multiple emergencies.
Between the two latest elections, two out of four years were spent under a caretaker government with limited powers as the country's political barons haggled over cabinet line-ups.
The latest government, led by billionaire Najib Mikati, has only been in place since September 2021 after a 13-month vacuum.
It was billed a mostly technocratic government tasked with guiding Lebanon to recovery, but each minister was endorsed by one of Lebanon's perennial heavyweights.
Whether any of the 13 MPs labelled as representing the interests of the 2019 anti-establishment uprising would consider joining a coalition government with that same establishment is doubtful.
"There is change in the balance of power but this will not translate in a programme for change because despite everything Hezbollah keeps its veto power," analyst Sami Nader said.
A quick fix would be to keep the Mikati government in a caretaker capacity until the presidential election.
- Presidential election -
That is the last but not the least of the major hurdles in the institutional calendar.
Due by the end of the year, the new parliament's pick for a president to succeed Michel Aoun, who will be 89 by then, was further complicated by the latest election.
He groomed his son-in-law Gebran Bassil for years but the electoral surge of the Lebanese Forces, the Christian rivals of Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, is a spanner in the family works.
Army chief Joseph Aoun has already been tipped as an alternative but talks could drag on.
"Probably we will have a long period of stalemate in the parliament," said Joseph Bahout, a professor at the American University of Beirut.
He predicted a tunnel of institutional deadlocks could delay reforms requested by the International Monetary Fund for a critically needed rescue package until the spring of 2023.
bur-jmm/dv
Hezbollah lose ground, reformists surge in Lebanon polls
Hezbollah did not hesitate to display mock-ups of its firepower during the campaign but its military arsenal is the main issue polarising the new parliament (AFP/IBRAHIM AMRO)More
Jean-Marc Mojon
Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:35 AM·4 min read
Shiite group Hezbollah and its allies lost their majority in Lebanon's parliament, official results showed Tuesday, while independents achieved a surprise breakthrough.
Full results announced by the interior ministry two days after the election revealed that no bloc will control the 128-seat assembly, a deadlock observers fear could usher in a tense period of political jostling.
The polls, the first since Lebanon was ravaged by its worst ever economic crisis and a cataclysmic explosion at Beirut port in 2020, were seen as a prerequisite for a crucial IMF bailout.
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its main allies had the support of around 70 lawmakers in the outgoing parliament but will now fall just short of the 65 seats needed to retain a majority.
Their strongest opponents in parliament will be led by the Christian Lebanese Forces party of former warlord Samir Geagea, that raked in several new seats on the back of a virulent anti-Hezbollah campaign.
New reformist faces who entered the legislative race on the values of a 2019 anti-establishment uprising made a stronger showing that many had predicted.
At least 13 independents who backed the 2019 protest movement won seats. Twelve of them will sit in parliament for the first time.
Together with other non-aligned MPs who have sometimes supported the now-defunct protest movement's demands, they could find themselves in a kingmaking position but they would need the kind of unity they failed to achieve during the campaign.
- Breakthrough -
Only eight women were voted into parliament.
One of the most notable victories notched up by independents was the election in southern Lebanon of Elias Jradeh and Firas Hamdan for seats that Hezbollah and its allies had not lost in three decades.
"We will cooperate with all the winners who share the same political orientation and we have to put together a common workplan," Hamdan told AFP.
"There's a lot of work to be done and a new type of political performance that should be demonstrated," he said.
Another major satisfaction for those described in Lebanon as the "thawra" (revolution, in Arabic) candidates, was the defeat of several reviled MPs loyal to the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.
In what was interpreted by independents as a gesture of spite by Hezbollah, a group of youths on scooters descended on Martyrs Square overnight and burned down the "revolution fist".
The temporary monument had become a visual symbol of the secular protests that swept Lebanon in October 2019 and had raised hopes of democratic change.
The movement lost momentum as Lebanon's ruling cartel of sectarian political barons bided their time and one of the sharpest economic downturns of our time muffled popular discontent.
The parliamentary elections were a first major test for those in the protest camp who chose to enter the political fray.
Hezbollah and its ally Amal retained all 27 parliament seats reserved for Shiite lawmakers but the Christian bloc led by President Michel Aoun and other coalition partners lost a little ground.
- Crisis ahead? -
The main issue that polarises parliament is Hezbollah's right to keep an arsenal that is often described as equivalent to or better than the state's.
Some see it as a historical right and the best defence for the small Mediterranean country while others consider Hezbollah's weapons to be the root of all of Lebanon's ills.
Sami Nader, an analyst with the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs, said that Hezbollah had suffered symbolic losses but was sceptical the polls could yield radical changes.
"Hezbollah and the Iranian axis took a blow but will this pave way for change in Lebanon? I have doubts," he told AFP.
The formation of a government, the election of parliament's speaker and the presidential election could all be very contentious and lead to protracted political crises.
Speaker Nabih Berri has held his job since 1992.
President Michel Aoun, the world's third oldest head of state, had long planned for his son-in-law Gebran Bassil to take over but the Lebanese Forces' surge in the polls could disrupt that scenario.
Lebanon shares power among its religious communities, and politics is often treated as a family business. By convention, the president is a Maronite Christian, the premier a Sunni Muslim, and the parliamentary speaker a Shiite.
Despite a turnout of 41 percent on Sunday, the UN envoy to Lebanon said "the elections were a vital expression of Lebanon's citizen engagement, which should serve to strengthen the country's institutions."
bur-jmm/
Jean-Marc Mojon
Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:35 AM·4 min read
Shiite group Hezbollah and its allies lost their majority in Lebanon's parliament, official results showed Tuesday, while independents achieved a surprise breakthrough.
Full results announced by the interior ministry two days after the election revealed that no bloc will control the 128-seat assembly, a deadlock observers fear could usher in a tense period of political jostling.
The polls, the first since Lebanon was ravaged by its worst ever economic crisis and a cataclysmic explosion at Beirut port in 2020, were seen as a prerequisite for a crucial IMF bailout.
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its main allies had the support of around 70 lawmakers in the outgoing parliament but will now fall just short of the 65 seats needed to retain a majority.
Their strongest opponents in parliament will be led by the Christian Lebanese Forces party of former warlord Samir Geagea, that raked in several new seats on the back of a virulent anti-Hezbollah campaign.
New reformist faces who entered the legislative race on the values of a 2019 anti-establishment uprising made a stronger showing that many had predicted.
At least 13 independents who backed the 2019 protest movement won seats. Twelve of them will sit in parliament for the first time.
Together with other non-aligned MPs who have sometimes supported the now-defunct protest movement's demands, they could find themselves in a kingmaking position but they would need the kind of unity they failed to achieve during the campaign.
- Breakthrough -
Only eight women were voted into parliament.
One of the most notable victories notched up by independents was the election in southern Lebanon of Elias Jradeh and Firas Hamdan for seats that Hezbollah and its allies had not lost in three decades.
"We will cooperate with all the winners who share the same political orientation and we have to put together a common workplan," Hamdan told AFP.
"There's a lot of work to be done and a new type of political performance that should be demonstrated," he said.
Another major satisfaction for those described in Lebanon as the "thawra" (revolution, in Arabic) candidates, was the defeat of several reviled MPs loyal to the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.
In what was interpreted by independents as a gesture of spite by Hezbollah, a group of youths on scooters descended on Martyrs Square overnight and burned down the "revolution fist".
The temporary monument had become a visual symbol of the secular protests that swept Lebanon in October 2019 and had raised hopes of democratic change.
The movement lost momentum as Lebanon's ruling cartel of sectarian political barons bided their time and one of the sharpest economic downturns of our time muffled popular discontent.
The parliamentary elections were a first major test for those in the protest camp who chose to enter the political fray.
Hezbollah and its ally Amal retained all 27 parliament seats reserved for Shiite lawmakers but the Christian bloc led by President Michel Aoun and other coalition partners lost a little ground.
- Crisis ahead? -
The main issue that polarises parliament is Hezbollah's right to keep an arsenal that is often described as equivalent to or better than the state's.
Some see it as a historical right and the best defence for the small Mediterranean country while others consider Hezbollah's weapons to be the root of all of Lebanon's ills.
Sami Nader, an analyst with the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs, said that Hezbollah had suffered symbolic losses but was sceptical the polls could yield radical changes.
"Hezbollah and the Iranian axis took a blow but will this pave way for change in Lebanon? I have doubts," he told AFP.
The formation of a government, the election of parliament's speaker and the presidential election could all be very contentious and lead to protracted political crises.
Speaker Nabih Berri has held his job since 1992.
President Michel Aoun, the world's third oldest head of state, had long planned for his son-in-law Gebran Bassil to take over but the Lebanese Forces' surge in the polls could disrupt that scenario.
Lebanon shares power among its religious communities, and politics is often treated as a family business. By convention, the president is a Maronite Christian, the premier a Sunni Muslim, and the parliamentary speaker a Shiite.
Despite a turnout of 41 percent on Sunday, the UN envoy to Lebanon said "the elections were a vital expression of Lebanon's citizen engagement, which should serve to strengthen the country's institutions."
bur-jmm/
Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:19 AM·4 min read
By Laila Bassam and Timour Azhari
(Reuters) -Iran-backed Hezbollah and its allies have lost their majority in Lebanon's parliament in a general election, a Reuters tally of final results showed on Tuesday, a major blow to the heavily armed group that reflects anger with Lebanon's ruling elite.
The Shi'ite Muslim movement and factions that support its possession of arms won around 62 of parliament's 128 seats in Sunday's election, a reversal of the 2018 result when they secured a majority of 71.
In the first election since Lebanon's economic collapse and the Beirut port explosion of 2020, reform-minded political newcomers won about a dozen seats, making an unexpectedly strong breakthrough into a system long dominated by the same groups.
Hezbollah opponents including the Saudi-aligned Lebanese Forces - a Christian faction - gained ground. It won around 19 seats, up from 15 in 2018, while the Hezbollah-allied Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) kept 18 seats, according to officials from both parties.
The results leave parliament split into several camps, none of which have a majority, raising the prospect of political paralysis and tensions that could delay reforms needed to steer the country out of its devastating economic crisis.
"Fragmentation has increased in the parliament, and this makes the process of legislation and forming majorities difficult," FPM leader Gebran Bassil said in a Tuesday news conference, calling on newcomers to work together with his party.
While the 2018 election pulled Lebanon closer into the orbit of Shi'ite Muslim-led Iran, these results could open the way for Saudi Arabia to reassert influence in a country that has long been an arena for its regional rivalry with Tehran.
The Saudi ambassador to Lebanon took an apparent swipe at Hezbollah on Tuesday without naming them, tweeting that the result "proves the inevitability that the logic of the state will win against the absurd excesses of the statelet disrupting political life and stability in Lebanon."
The final results on Tuesday included a record of eight women lawmakers, nearly half of them newcomers.
Unexpected upsets included the dislodging by two new MPs of Hezbollah allies Talal Arslan, heir to one of Lebanon's oldest Druze political dynasties, and deputy speaker of parliament Elie Ferzli.
Sunni Muslim politician Faisal Karami, scion of another Lebanese political dynasty, also lost his seat in the country's second city Tripoli.
'CRACK IN THE WALL'
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called in a statement late on Monday for the swift formation of an inclusive government to stabilize the economy.
Sami Atallah, director of The Policy Initiative, a Beirut-based think tank, said that was unlikely.
He said groups within the "polarised parliament" would lock horns when electing a parliamentary speaker, naming the next prime minister and voting on a president later this year.
And while Hezbollah and the allied Amal Movement maintained their control of the 27 Shi'ite-allocated seats, they lost two seats in their traditional stronghold of south Lebanon.
Atallah said that could push them to take a hardline stance: "They don't want to have a crack in the wall."
Overnight, large crowds carrying Hezbollah flags gathered in downtown Beirut, chanting in support of the group, according to footage posted on social media. Reuters could not independently verify the videos.
By the morning, a giant cardboard fist in downtown Beirut that was first erected when protests against the ruling establishment erupted three years ago appeared to have been torn down and burned, according to a Reuters witness.
The 2019 demonstrations reflected anger at a political class seen as corrupt and inefficient. Since then, Lebanon has plunged into an economic crisis that the World Bank has described as one of the worst since the Industrial Revolution.
The local currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value, reaching 30,000 pounds to the U.S. dollar on Tuesday, roughly a 10% loss since Sunday's election.
But Lebanon's central bank said on Tuesday it would continue to allow commercial banks to purchase dollars on its Sayrafa platform rate "without amendment," an operation that has helped stabilize the exchange rate since it began in January.
The economic decline has pushed nearly three-quarters of Lebanon's population under the poverty line, which election observers had warned could open the door to more vote-buying.
In a preliminary statement on Tuesday, the European Union Election Observation Mission said the poll had been "overshadowed by widespread practices of vote-buying, clientelism and corruption".
(Reporting by Laila Bassam, Timour Azhari and Lina Najem; Writing by Tom Perry and Maya Gebeily; Editing by Catherine Evans and Grant McCool)
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