BEIRUT, (Reuters) – Iran-backed Hezbollah and its allies are likely to lose their majority in Lebanon’s parliament, three sources allied to the group said on Monday, in a major blow to the heavily armed faction that reflected widespread anger at ruling parties. Sunday’s election – the first since Lebanon’s financial collapse and the Beirut port blast of 2020 – also produced wins for the Saudi-aligned Lebanese Forces (LF), a Christian party, and reform-minded candidates across sects. Their breakthroughs, however, could fracture parliament into several camps and polarise it more sharply between Hezbollah’s allies and opponents. Those opponents are not currently united into a single bloc. The deadlock could derail reforms required to unlock support from the International Monetary Fund to ease Lebanon’s economic crisis and delay parliamentary decisions on a speaker, a premier to form a Cabinet, and a new president later this year.

Preliminary results indicate a reversal of Lebanon’s last election in 2018, when Hezbollah and its allies won 71 of parliament’s 128 seats, pulling Lebanon deeper into the orbit of Shi’ite-led Iran and away from Sunni-led Saudi Arabia. Sunday’s result could open the door for Riyadh to exercise greater sway in Beirut, long an arena of its rivalry with Tehran. There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia, but Iran on Monday said it respected the vote and had never intervened in Lebanon’s internal affairs. The United States, which has imposed sanctions on Hezbollah, welcomed the elections and encouraged politicians to recommit to economic reforms.

‘NATIONAL CELEBRATION’

interior Minister – Bassam Mawlawi

NNA – Minister of Interior and Municipalities, Judge Bassam Mawlawi, announced on Monday evening the winners in some districts in Lebanon’s 2022 parliamentary elections, pending the results of the remaining districts. “Despite all the difficulties and skepticism, we were able to hold elections successfully,” Mawlawi said. “All the skepticism campaigns that accompanied the sorting of results did not affect our work, nor that of officials and judges, who worked day and night to carry out their patriotic duty, to contribute to the salvation of the country, and to issue the results,” he said. “The voting rates are not low but rather good, and they are almost similar or slightly lower than the percentages of previous elections,” Mawlawi added. Mawlawi announced the legislative elections’ vote count results as follows:

Winners in South II: Nabih Berri, Hussein Jashi, Ali Khreis, Inaya Ezzedine, Ali Oseiran, and Michel Moussa.

Winners in South I: Abdel Rahman Al-Bizri, Osama Saad, Saeed Al-Asmar, Charbel Massaad, and Ghada Ayoub.

Winners in Mount Lebanon I: Ziad Al-Hawat, Raed Berro, Nada Al-Bustani, Neemat Frem, Shawki Daccache, Farid el Khazen, Simon Abi Ramia, and Salim Al-Sayegh.

Winners in Bekaa I: Ramy Abu Hamdan, George Okeis, Michel Daher, Elias Stephan, Salim Aoun, Bilal Al-Hashimi, and George Bushkian.

Winners in Bekaa II: Qabalan Qabalan, Wael Abu Faour, Hassan Murad, Yassin Yassin, Charbel Maroun, and Ghassan Skaf.

Winners in Mount Lebanon III: Ali Ammar, Pierre Bou Assi, Hadi Abu Al-Hassan, Alain Aoun, Fadi Alama, and Camille Chamoun.

Winners in Bekaa III: Antoine Habshi, Hussein Hajj Hassan, Ghazi Zaiter, Ihab Hamadeh, Ali Miqdad, Ibrahim Al-Moussawi, Antoine Habashi, Jamil Al-Sayyed, Samer Al-Toum, Yanal Muhammad Solh, and Melhem Muhammad Al-Hujairi.

Keserwan – Jabal Lebnaan – كسروان

  source: Lebanonfiles — أفادت معلومات مستقاة من الماكينات الانتخابية الحزبية ان الثنائي الشيعي يتقدم بشكل كبير في الجنوب الثانية، أما في الجنوب الثالثة فلائحة المعارضة أصواتها مرتفعة. وفي الشمال الثانية افيد عن حصول لائحة أشرف ريفي على 3 حواصل ولائحة كرامي على حاصلين وقدامى المستقبل على حاصل واحد ولائحة ميقاتي على حاصلين، وبينت النتائج الاولية […]

By Laila Bassam, Timour Azhari and Maya Gebeily —

BEIRUT, May 16 (Reuters) – Iran-backed Hezbollah has been dealt a blow in Lebanon’s parliamentary election with preliminary results showing losses for some of its oldest allies and the Saudi-aligned Lebanese Forces party saying it had gained seats. With votes still being counted, the final make-up of the 128-member parliament has yet to emerge. The heavily armed Shi’ite Muslim group Hezbollah and its allies won a majority of 71 seats when Lebanon last voted in 2018. The current election is the first since Lebanon’s devastating economic meltdown blamed by the World Bank on ruling politicians after a huge port explosion in 2020 that shattered Beirut.

One of the most startling upsets saw Hezbollah-allied Druze politician Talal Arslan, scion of one of Lebanon’s oldest political dynasties who was first elected in 1992, lose his seat to Mark Daou, a newcomer running on a reform agenda, according to the latter’s campaign manager and a Hezbollah official. Initial results also indicated wins for at least five other independents who have campaigned on a platform of reform and bringing to account politicians blamed for steering Lebanon into the worst crisis since its 1975-90 civil war. Whether Hezbollah and its allies can cling on to a majority hinges on results not yet finalised, including those in Sunni Muslim seats contested by allies and opponents of the Shi’ite movement.

by lebanondebate.com — بدأت عملية فرز الأصوات، وأتَت نتيجة فرز الأصوات وفق ماكينة المُرشّح فريد هيكل الخازن على الشكل التالي:-في جبيل: نسبة الإقتراع 64%– في كسروان: نسبة الإقتراع من 68 إلى 69 %.وأرقام النائب فريد هيكل الخازن حتى الآن 7577 في كسروان، وهي نتيجة جيّدة للوصول إلى الحاصل بإنتظار نتائج أقلام إقتراع دائرة جبيل بالتفصيل.

by news.middleeast-24.com — Former US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker talks about the US role in accelerating the financial collapse in Lebanon, and Washington’s vision for the upcoming parliamentary elections. Former US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker Ahead of the parliamentary elections in Lebanon, the former US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, David Schenker, made dangerous statements about the American role played by the administration of former President Donald Trump in the country in order to accelerate the financial collapse, and about the administration’s exploitation of the “October 17” movement in order to distort The image of Hezbollah and its weakening with its allies.

During a symposium conducted by the Washington Institute under the title “Hezbollah and Shiites Dynamics and Lebanon’s Elections: Challenges, Opportunities, and Political Implications,” Schenker stated that during the Trump era, his country “imposed sanctions on Hezbollah’s financial institutions and on the Jammal Bank, and proceeded to synchronize this immediately after the establishment of the Agency.” Moody’s credit rating downgrades Lebanon’s credit rating. He added, “We were the ones behind the decision to lower Lebanon’s credit rating, and the Trump administration was keen to synchronize the announcement of the downgrade with its imposition of sanctions on the Beauty Bank, which was imposed at that time the next day immediately.” He pointed out, in this context, that “Washington not only did this to this extent, but also imposed sanctions on Hezbollah’s ally, the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, Gebran Bassil.”

by AFP — Lebanese activists on Friday rolled out mock banknotes featuring paintings of a gutted central bank or the Beirut port explosion to denounce high-level corruption that has helped to wreck the country. The dollars stuck in accounts that citizens can only withdraw in Lebanese pounds at a fraction of their original value are […]

By Tamara Qiblawi, CNN — Beirut, Lebanon (CNN)The coastal highway that connects Lebanon’s northern-most tip to the country’s south is peppered with gaping potholes. The stench of landfill hangs in the air as emaciated men rummage through dumpsters, their faces smudged with dirt. Towering above the wreckage wrought by nearly three years of economic collapse are endless rows of election billboards. Some show relatively unfamiliar candidates fielded by new political groups. But most display the looming faces of politicians from decades-old sectarian parties. Nearly all of the campaign slogans promise “change.” The irony is not lost on anyone in a country where negligence by the political elite nearly destroyed the capital in the biggest non-nuclear explosion in history.

Lebanon’s soul has been eviscerated by its financial crisis. Not even the children want to play On Sunday, Lebanese citizens will vote for a new parliament for the first time since an October 2019 uprising demanded the fall of a century-old political order. The path to political change has been rife with challenges, and whether this year’s election will deliver a new political makeup is far from certain. But this is a moment of reckoning for Lebanon’s political elite. The establishment they represent is a microcosm of the region’s decades-old fault lines, pitting groups backed by the archrivals Iran and Saudi Arabia against each other. Change in Beirut’s political order could mark a first step in extricating the country from its hodgepodge of proxy conflicts, and produce a ripple effect in a region where protest movements have so far failed to effect political change.

By Heba Nasser in Sour, Lebanon — middleeasteye.net — The electoral aesthetic across south Lebanon is a glaring display of the deep-rooted dominance of Hezbollah and the Amal Movement. All along highways and side roads, the serene faces of Shia leaders and their candidates look on from posters as people drive deeper southward. “Your trust is our responsibility,” proclaims one slogan perched high at the entrance of Abbasiyeh, a town a handful of kilometres away from Lebanon’s southern coast. There’s no question that the Shia heavyweight parties are predicted to win the majority of votes in south Lebanon on Sunday. But a lot has changed in the four years since Lebanon’s last elections: a popular uprising and catastrophic economic collapse, to name a few. That upheaval has led to rumblings of dissatisfaction across Hezbollah and Amal’s stronghold, and the parties themselves have taken notice.

Despite their assured electoral hold, for weeks now the parties have been contacting southern constituents – even those most loyal to them – to ensure that they will be voting on Sunday, in a push never seen previously. But like all parties that make up the oligarchy that has run Lebanon into the ground, they are increasingly associated with the country’s breakdown, and many in the south have started expressing disenchantment with the factions they have traditionally supported and repeatedly voted for. How that dissatisfaction is expressed is another matter. Lebanese voters have a habit of calling for change only to vote for their traditional parties when at the polling booth. Yet many southerners told Middle East Eye that faced with today’s corruption, stasis, and economic meltdown, they plan to boycott or cast blank ballots.