by lebanondebate.com — بدأت عملية فرز الأصوات، وأتَت نتيجة فرز الأصوات وفق ماكينة المُرشّح فريد هيكل الخازن على الشكل التالي:-في جبيل: نسبة …

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 …

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.