Reformists challenge ruling parties in third round of Lebanon municipal elections

The third round of Lebanon’s municipal elections took place on Sunday with voters casting their ballots in the capital and the country’s eastern regions.

Beirut, the Beqaa and Baalbek-Hermel governorates witnessed heated competition between sect-based parties of the ruling elite and reformist campaigners looking to make some breakthrough in municipalities.

Polling stations opened at 7 am (500 GMT) and closed at 7 pm.

Lebanon’s municipal elections happen over the course of four weekends in the same month. Mount Lebanon and north Lebanon already voted, with only the south left to vote next week.

The last municipal elections happened in 2016 and are supposed to take place every six years but have been delayed three times since 2022 due to a parliamentary election, financial difficulties, and the war between Hezbollah and Israel last year.

Like in the previous two Sundays, many towns and villages did not see an electoral battle after their councils won through acclamation.

Foes join forces in Beirut

In the Lebanese capital, the voter turnout was incredibly low with around 21 percent.

There were six campaigns running in the city, including 'Beirut Btejmaana' (Beirut unites us), an alliance made up of most of the country’s ruling elite parties – who are usually politically far apart. 'Beirut Madinati' (Beirut is my city) is the main reformist campaign running against the alliance of establishment parties.

There have been concerns over the outcome of the election in Beirut. Since the 1990s, and by convention, the city’s 24-member council is to be split equally between Muslims and Christians, something that slain prime minister Rafiq Hariri and later on his son and former prime minister Saad, had preserved in every vote, in line with the country’s delicate power sharing structure.

Unlike the parliamentary election which has sectarian quotas and is based on a proportional representation system, the electoral law that governs the municipal vote is majoritarian, meaning the winning candidate list takes all in the council, except in some instances.

The 'Beirut Btejmaana' campaign, made up of parties from the ruling political class and some prominent Beirut figures, have defended their campaign against criticism by saying it aimed to preserve equality in the country’s capital.

Many have slammed the "hypocrisy and double standards" of the campaign, saying parties that are usually polar opposite to one another – like Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces – are running together in the face of reformists.

'Beirut Madinati', which also ran in the 2016 polls against another alliance of sect-based parties, called on residents of the capital to give them a chance.

The campaign includes several younger candidates and 13 women and 11 men.

The New Arab reached out to the campaign for comment but did not hear back by the time this was written.

After casting his ballot, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, from Beirut himself, had called on the city’s residents to turn out in large numbers, citing the low participation.

Like much of the country, the state of public services and critical infrastructure have deteriorated in Beirut in the past six years due to the country’s devastating financial crisis.

Swathes of Beirut were heavily damaged after the 2020 port explosion which killed over 230 people, and the city itself – not only its southern suburbs – was struck several times by Israel last year, sometimes levelling entire buildings.

Challenging Baalbek’s status quo

In the eastern city of Baalbek, a reformist campaign also took part in the election and ran against the Hezbollah-Amal Movement alliance.

Despite incidents that saw its banners torn down and reports of its candidates and supporters intimidated or threatened, 'Baalbek Madinati' this year decided to challenge the status quo in the city, home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Hezbollah and Amal have usually run together in elections, whether municipal or legislative, as a means to guarantee complete domination of Shia representation in Shia-majority areas where they have long held sway.

Although Baalbek is religiously diverse with a sizeable Sunni minority, Hezbollah and Amal – often referred to as the "Shia duo" – have usually held a monopoly over the council.

Voters also casted their ballots for over 80 other municipalities across the Baalbek-Hermel governorate, a region that was heavily targeted in the war.

Dozens of towns and villages across the region were bombed repeatedly. Israel continues to conduct strikes in the Hezbollah stronghold, particularly along the mountainous border with Syria, vowing to stop the Iran-backed militant group from rebuilding itself.

Hezbollah was heavily weakened in the conflict, with most of its senior command structure wiped out, thousands of its fighters killed, and its main weapons supply route from Iran via Syria lost.

Under the ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah must completely disarm while the Lebanese army takes control of all the group’s sites.

So far, the military has dismantled most of Hezbollah’s arms caches south of the Litani River close to the Israeli border.

A heated battle in Zahle

In the city of Zahle, the administrative capital of the Beqaa governorate and largest Catholic-majority city in the country, the Lebanese Forces decided to run alone after they failed to forge an alliance with other parties and local figures.

The city has always been a focal point for rival Christian groups in the Beqaa.

There were some tensions in Zahle’s Haouch al-Omara neighbourhood after reports of bribery, which prompted the quick intervention of security forces and a local MP.

Other reports said police intelligence raided a Hezbollah office in the city’s Maalqa neighbourhood over suspected vote buying.

Beqaa – where some villages were also targeted by Israel – is religiously and politically diverse and made up of three administrative districts: Zahle, Rachaya, West Beqaa.

Unlike in Beirut, voter turnout was better in Baalbek-Hermel and Beqaa but still low, tipping at just over 40 percent in both governorates around an hour before polling stations were due to close.