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Will Hezbollah's election setback change anything in Lebanon?

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Beirut, Lebanon (CNN) Tamara Qiblawi -- Iran-backed Hezbollah lost its parliamentary edge in a high-stakes election last weekend. For Lebanon, this could mean everything, or nothing at all. The country's new parliament remains largely split between pro-Iran and pro-Saudi blocs. Hezbollah still commands the largest single parliamentary bloc and the new political makeup signals that the country is headed, yet again, for a costly stalemate. Yet within those apparently immutable divisions, important political shifts have taken place. Reformists from outside Lebanon's traditional political establishment won around 10% of the seats. The reformists dislodged, if marginally, the dominance of an old political elite. This worked against Lebanon's most powerful political party. When Hezbollah's bloc lost a majority that underpinned the last four years of Lebanese politics, it was an unusual setback.

The group had gotten used to victory over the years. In 2000, it drove Israeli forces out of southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation. In 2006, it held its ground in a war against Israel when Israel sought to disarm the group. During Syria's civil war, it successfully intervened on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and helped bolster his defenses after the dictator violently quashed a popular uprising against his rule. The group's political influence appeared to be on a relentless rise, despite a domestic bid — backed by Saudi Arabia — to curb the group's power that was rapidly extending beyond Lebanon. But the weekend's election marked a reversal of fortunes. While the parliamentary makeup of Hezbollah and its Shia ally, Amal, remains intact, a number of the group's allies were unseated or beaten, mostly by reformists.

Analysts said this pointed to a loss in the group's once formidable mobilization power. This could be a sign of growing frustration among Hezbollah's constituents with the way it has handled a devastating economic crisis -- and its increasingly heavy-handed intimidation tactics against dissent, including its attempts to stifle an investigation into Beirut's 2020 port blast. It is unclear how Hezbollah will respond to these losses, or how the country's new parliament will chart its course forward amid a financial tailspin. Those in parliament who oppose Hezbollah are an inchoate cluster of parties and independent candidates, with the Saudi-allied right-wing Christian Lebanese Forces (LF) representing the largest parliamentary bloc among them. The LF is a civil war-era militia-turned-political party, a far cry from the change that the masses called for when nationwide demonstrations engulfed the country in October 2019.

Who are the major winners and losers? Lebanon Parliamentary 2022 Elections

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By AJ Naddaff -- middleeasteye.net -- Lebanon's first elections since the country was devastated by its worst-ever economic crisis have unseated household names in Lebanese politics, shifted majority blocs, and yielded a surprising breakthrough for independents. Middle East Eye takes a look at some of the elections' most notable winners and losers.

Hezbollah-Amal's prominent allies

While Hezbollah and their Amal Movement ally retained their dominance of Shia representation in parliament, some of their longtime Christian, Sunni and Druze allies lost their seats. The most prominent among the Hezbollah-allied unseated MPs is Talal Arslan. The Druze politician, hailing from one of Lebanon’s oldest political dynasties, was first elected in 1992. The prince of Druze Feudalism, known as the emir in Arabic, lost his seat in the Mount Lebanon IV constituency to Mark Daou, a newcomer campaigning on a reform agenda. Elie Ferzli, the longtime Greek Orthodox deputy speaker of parliament, is also a veteran MP who was defeated in the Bekaa II constituency. He lost to one of the more controversial opposition-backed candidates: Yassin Yassin. Scepticism surrounds Yassin, a millionaire who purchased some of former prime minister Saad Hariri’s old businesses yet presents himself as anti-establishment. In the north, Syria-aligned Faisal Karami, the heir of an influential political family in northern Tripoli, failed to get re-elected for a second term in parliament, although his list still won three seats. Karami’s father, Omar, served two terms as premier when Faisal was young.

New Christian majority on the block

Hezbollah Loses Majority Bloc in Lebanon Election, Results Show

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By Ben Hubbard -- NewYork times -- nytimes -- BEIRUT, Lebanon — Voters in Lebanon deprived the Hezbollah militant group and its political allies of a parliamentary majority while electing about a dozen new, independent candidates, according to official results released on Tuesday. The election, on Sunday, was the first opportunity for voters to formally respond to their leaders’ performance since the onset of a grave financial crisis that hollowed out the national currency and sent the economy spiraling. It is also the first vote since a huge explosion in the port of Beirut in August 2020, widely attributed to mismanagement and corruption, that killed more than 200 people and damaged a large area of the capital city. Competing for seats in the 128-member Parliament were established political parties and longtime operatives whom many Lebanese accuse of ruining the country and a range of new figures who promised change.

The results removed a few bricks from the old order, but fell far short of starting a sweeping overhaul of who exercises power in the small Mediterranean country and how. Soon, the body will face the daunting task of appointing a new prime minister and cabinet to work toward an aid agreement with the International Monetary Fund and try to steer the country out of an economic crisis that the World Bank described as one of the world’s worst in the last century and a half.

The full parliamentary map will only become clear after coalitions are formed and legislating begins, and the process of government formation often takes months. Still the most significant change appeared to be the loss of the parliamentary majority enjoyed by Hezbollah and its allies since the last election in 2018. Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militant group and political party that the United States considers a terrorist organization, has won loyal support from its base in Lebanon as an anti-Israel military force whose fighters have intervened in conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Hezbollah, in addition to its gunmen who can project power on Lebanon’s streets, has government ministers and members of Parliament who wield political power by forming coalitions with other parties. In the election, although Hezbollah kept the 13 seats held by its members, some of its allied political parties lost seats, driving the coalition below the 65-seat threshold it must meet to ensure a majority.

The fact that no party or bloc won a solid majority set the stage for partisan gridlock that could prevent the Parliament from passing legislation necessary to ease the country’s woes. The I.M.F. and international donors have called for significant changes before aid will be given, none of which have been carried out. New in this election was a range of independent candidates, many of whom emerged from a protest movement that began in the fall of 2019 calling for the ouster of the political class. The new Parliament contains eight women, a record. About a dozen independent candidates won seats, also a record. “The spirit of change inside the Lebanese Parliament has started,” said Layal Bou Moussa, who ran unsuccessfully as an independent, speaking of the new newcomers. “If they manage to unite into a single bloc, they can do something against the parties’ blocs.”

Sami Atallah, the founding director of The Policy Initiative, a think tank focused on Lebanon, said they could add a new dynamic. “We have a mosaic-like Parliament, and the presence of the new faces is interesting because they can press for new ideas and stop harmful ones,” he said. But the newcomers hold such disparate ideas about how to fix the country that it remains unclear whether they will work together, he said. The newcomers will have to contend with established politicians who have strong ties to the banking system, which the government has acknowledged has lost $72 billion. And the loss of the parliamentary majority by Hezbollah and its allies will not affect the status of the group’s weapons, Mr. Atallah said. Hezbollah’s arms are beyond the control of the state, meaning that no Parliament can take them away or affect how they are used. “We are controlled by two camps that are not really hidden, but they are running the show,” he said.

The Free Patriotic Movement of President Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian bloc and an ally of Hezbollah, was among those that lost seats. The new Parliament will be tasked with replacing Mr. Aoun, 88, as president when his term ends in October. The party’s leader, Gebran Bassil, blamed the losses on outside forces. The party, he wrote on Twitter, was not at war with other parties, he said, but “with America, Israel and its allies.” The United States has accused Mr. Bassil of corruption and imposed sanctions on him last year. He has denied the accusation.

Another longtime Hezbollah ally who lost his seat, the Druze politician Wiam Wahhab, wrote to his supporters, “I’m sorry for the betrayal that we have been subjected to by those who believed lies and chose humiliation over freedom.” To the electorate, he wrote, “Let us know in a year about the achievements of your deputies.” The Lebanese Forces, another Christian party, headed by Samir Geagea, a former warlord from Lebanon’s 15-year civil war that ended in 1990, gained seats. With support from Saudi Arabia, Mr. Geagea is a staunch opponent of Hezbollah. His party won the largest bloc, with 21 seats.

Many old-guard politicians kept their seats, including two whom the judge investigating the cause of the Beirut port explosion had charged in connection with the blast. The two men, Ali Hassan Khalil and Ghazi Zeaiter, worked to hobble the investigation and were both re-elected. Turnout was lower than in the previous elections, with only about 41 percent of eligible voters in-country participating, according to a preliminary government count. Analysts attributed the low turnout to cynicism, emigration and the inability of some voters to afford the fuel needed to return to their ancestral villages, where they are required to vote.

The vote itself was marred by irregularities, with Lebanese monitoring groups and social media users sharing videos of party supporters harassing their opponents, following voters inside polling stations and influencing their choices with cash and other gifts. An observation mission sent by the European Union described the campaign in an initial report released on Tuesday as “vibrant but marred by various instances of intimidation, including on social media, and instances of campaign obstruction.” The election was skewed, the report said, by “a high monetization of the campaign, where a culture of in-kind and financial handouts for electoral purposes by institutions owned or managed by candidates or parties prevailed.”

Hwaida Saad and Asmaa al-Omar contributed rep

David Shanker Interview to LBCI confirms that Al-Mayadeen and al-Manar news are not reliable

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by news.middleeast-24.com -- The former US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, David Schenker, confirmed that “the Free Patriotic Movement went through a very difficult time in the elections, and the United States held it responsible for its actions, which it considered corrupt.” In an interview with LBCI, Schenker said: “The head of the movement, Gebran Bassil, was one of Hezbollah’s main allies and was responsible for the financial collapse in Lebanon by not taking any decisions clearly to help Lebanon.” He added, “I recommend going to the Washington Institute website and not receiving news from Al-Manar or Al-Mayadeen. I only expressed my concern that the opposition is divided and that there are many groups that have spread and that they will compete against each other.” He believed that “civil society has so far won about 10 seats, which is a good thing, but perhaps they could have won more if they had united in some way and entered as a coherent opposition to civil society,” considering that “it is remarkable that all these pro-Syrian and pro-Assad candidates such as Arslan, Wahhab and Faisal Karami Farzli and Asaad Hardan were not voted for.”

He revealed that, “I do not think that my support for the opposition in the Lebanese elections interfered with internal affairs. I am a public figure here and I am not an official in the US government.”

Lebanon's Hezbollah, allies likely to lose parliamentary majority (digest news)

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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'

Elections Results (official)

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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.