With six months to go, Hezbollah, diaspora vote, and fate of 'Change MPs' hang over Lebanese elections 2026

When the results of the 2022 parliamentary elections came in, a shock coursed through Lebanon’s political scene when it was announced that around a dozen “change” candidates won seats, significantly more than most believed would win.

Now, nearly four years later, the 2026 elections are only six months away, and these same reformist movements are looking to make gains on what they achieved in the previous election.

However, unlike in 2022, when there were a multitude of issues candidates could use to mobilise voters, this time the change movement is facing a decrease in momentum, internal fragmentation, voter apathy, and questions surrounding the diaspora vote.

“When it comes to civil society in Lebanon and the upcoming elections, we are seeing a mix of momentum and fatigue,” Kristof Kleemann, the Lebanon and Syria director for the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, told The New Arab.

“After 2022, many groups shifted their focus toward advocacy, local governance and development work. But with elections approaching, conversations have restarted about coordination and lessons learned.”

These issues are not lost on those within the change movement.

Mark Daou, a “change” MP representing Chouf-Aley, told The New Arab that there is a lack of consolidation, leading to fragmentation in Lebanon’s political sphere.

Casing a wide net

While the change movement did better than most analysts anticipated in 2022, there was criticism that they could have done even better if they had formed a united front rather than having multiple lists that helped split the vote for change candidates in many electoral districts, making it easier for the traditional political establishment to win seats.

“Fragmentation was a key reason why traditional parties managed to retain seats, even with low popular confidence. In some districts, opposition votes were literally split between two or three lists that shared 80 percent of their message,” Kleemann explained.

This disunity was in part due to political infighting within the movement, but also stems from the fact that the change movement is an amalgamation of movements that stemmed from the Oct. 17, 2019, uprising that boasted a wide range of views.

According to Camille Mourani, the political coordinator for the National Bloc, the “image of Oct. 17 was much more unified than the reality” because of the wide range of views that encompassed the uprising.

These diverse opinions are not inherently negative things the change movement needs to overcome. Instead, it means that it needs to be able to form coalitions that hone in on several key priorities that it can use to present to the electorate to show that it is a viable alternative to the traditional political establishment.

“I think what will happen is there will be a version 2.0 of civil society that is more politically mature and less diversified in the sense of the range of political opinions,” Daou said. “The political maturity accumulated is going to focus efforts of several individuals with actual representation to try and consolidate.”

Kleemann emphasised that the change movement needs to create a degree of unity among the various factions it encompasses.

“Unless civil society actors are willing to align strategically, they will keep reproducing the same divisions they claim to oppose and Lebanon’s entrenched parties will continue to benefit,” Kleemann stated.

Having core issues to rally voters around could prove a challenge, though, with Mourani arguing that there is currently no major topic that campaigns can use as a rallying cry.

“What’s the main political battle behind these elections?” he questioned. “People are going to vote for what? It’s clear who they are voting for, but voting for what? They were voting for change in 2022.”

The biggest topic being discussed in Lebanon right now is Hezbollah’s disarmament, but that may be a challenging issue to campaign on.

A wild card issue

In August, the Salam government tasked the Lebanese army with drawing up a plan on disarming Hezbollah and other armed non-state actors in the country by the end of the year, a monumental decision that sent shockwaves throughout the region.

Since the Lebanese army came back to the government a month later with its plan, disarmament has been slow, with it being concentrated in the border region and even the Palestinian camps only partially disarming after Fatah factions, linked to the governing Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, voluntarily gave up their arms.

This has led to irritation from the United States and Israelis, who sought to have Hezbollah disarmed by the end of the year, with Israel increasing its airstrikes on Lebanon despite the Nov. 27, 2024, ceasefire agreement. It has also led to criticism within Lebanon, with some saying that the government was deliberately avoiding carrying out Hezbollah’s disarmament.

Because the disarmament process has been slow, it ensures that the topic will dominate discussion in the build-up to the election.

“The challenge for Lebanon is that the debate may be unusually compressed because of external pressure from the United States and Israel, which could force the issue to the forefront unexpectedly or shorten the window for a public campaign. For civil society, this means it must act early,” Kleemann said.

Even if the disarmament issue persists until the election, it could prove a thorny topic for the change movement to campaign on.

Despite there being broad support for disarming Hezbollah in much of the country, this is mainly limited to non-Shia areas. In southern Lebanon, Bekaa and Beirut’s southern suburbs, all places where Hezbollah continues to enjoy widespread support, it would be nearly impossible for the change movement to get candidates elected while arguing this issue.

“You’re not going to go for a Shia seat in Nabatiyeh today in this situation, and where Hezbollah is more than ever entrenched in the social aspects and reconstruction, and it’s going to be very difficult to make headway in the independent Shia movement in the south, given the circumstances on the ground. It’s wishful thinking,” Kristy Asseily, a political analyst who ran on the National Bloc’s list in the May 2025 municipal elections, told The New Arab.

While disarmament might ultimately be the most significant topic on voters' minds as they go to the ballot box in 2026, one issue has dominated the Lebanese political theatre for months: the diaspora vote and whether they would vote for six special diaspora MPs or all 128 national parliamentary seats.

Get out the vote

When it came to the diaspora vote in 2022, all political actors in the country, whether from the traditional establishment or the change movement, campaigned hard to get as many of Lebanon’s 15 million diaspora community, spread across the world, to register and vote in the May election.

In the end, this effort proved beneficial to the change movement, as the diaspora overwhelmingly voted for its candidates.

The diaspora vote for this election, though, is up in the air as Parliament is debating whether or not to permanently change the electoral law to allow the diaspora to vote for all 128 seats, like in 2022, or to allow a law to go into effect that would see six additional seats established that the diaspora would vote on instead of the whole parliament.

“That [diaspora] influence [in the elections] explains why the current debate over whether expatriates should vote for all 128 seats or just six special ones is so critical,” Kleemann stated. “Restricting their participation would weaken one of the few reform-leaning constituencies that exist outside Lebanon’s entrenched clientelist networks.”

Even if the Lebanese diaspora can vote for all 128 seats, their impact in 2026 will likely be significantly less than in 2022, given that just over 87,000 have registered to vote in the upcoming election, compared to over 225,000 in 2022. This number could still climb, but since registration ends on Nov. 20, it is not expected to increase by much.

Part of the lower registration, Asseily argues, stems from a lack of tangible issues that mobilised people like in 2022.

“In 2022, it was like go vote because of the port explosion. Go vote because of the banking crisis. Go vote because of things that people really felt, saw, and experienced in the year leading up to the election. Now, you don’t have anything,” she said.

This political apathy is not limited to the diaspora. In Lebanon, there is little interest in voting, as many Lebanese believe that little will change after the election.

In the years since the 2022 election, the traditional political establishment has begun adapting to new realities on the ground by amplifying fear-based narratives and characterising themselves as the only reliable source of identity and protection, allowing them to regain lost ground.

“Civil society, despite its growth, continues to struggle to offer an emotional alternative, one that convinces people change is not just rational but also meaningful and secure,” Kleemann stated. “This is why frustration with the political class did not translate into votes during the last municipal elections.”

According to Mourani, this voter apathy and positioning by the traditional parties puts an extra burden on the change movement to show people that they are a viable alternative that seeks to help the country in the hopes of convincing people to cast their ballots in favour of change.

“We need to show people that there is a new way of doing politics, a clean way, a transparent way oriented towards the interests of the country and not for personal gain,” he said. “The change movement has a responsibility of showing people that there are still people who have good intentions.”

Nicholas Frakes is a journalist and photojournalist based in Lebanon, reporting on the Middle East.

Follow him on Twitter: @nicfrakesjourno