Lebanon vote brings blow for Hezbollah allies in preliminary results

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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.

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هذه نتيجة الخازن في كسروان!

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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.

US diplomat: US-backed Lebanese opposition self-centered, narcissistic

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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.”

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Lebanese activists launch mock ‘lollar’ currency to highlight corruption

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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 known locally as “lollars”. With parliamentary elections today, the Lebanese Transparency Association (LTA) decided to take the joke to the streets, with a stunt encouraging people to use “lollars” for the day.

The “monetary disobedience” campaign, entitled “Currency of Corruption”, encourages people to print their own “funny money” at home and try to use it as a means of raising awareness. “We will not adapt to this mockery anymore, we are #NotPayingThePrice,” the LTA said in a statement unveiling the campaign and its hashtag. The mock banknotes feature paintings by acclaimed Lebanon-based artist Tom Young depicting calamities that have hit Lebanon in recent years, from the deadly August 2020 port blast to forest fires, solid waste pollution and shortages.

On one of Beirut’s main squares on Friday, organisers installed a fake ATM from which passers-by could withdraw “lollars”. LTA communications officer Hazar Assi said the campaign was aimed at reminding voters that their current plight was to blame on the country’s corrupt hereditary leaders. “When people vote, they should make a choice based on accountability and rejecting the corruption that is affecting all of our lives,” she said. Lebanon’s traditional parties will seek to extend their stranglehold on power in parliamentary elections on Sunday but a new generation of independent candidates are hoping for a breakthrough.

Lebanese take their fight with a century-old political order to the ballot box

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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.

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Lebanon elections: Hezbollah and Amal court bitter and broke southerners

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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.

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