BEIRUT — Lebanon held its first election Sunday since a
painful economic crisis dragged it to the brink of becoming a failed state, a
major test for new opposition groups bent on ousting the ruling elite.
اضافة اعلان
But few observers expected a seismic shift, with all
levers of political power firmly in the hands of traditional sectarian parties
and an electoral system seen as rigged in their favor.
Lebanon shares power among its religious
communities, and politics is often treated as a family business. By convention,
the president is a Maronite Christian, the premier a Sunni Muslim, and the
parliament speaker a Shiite.
“I voted for change, of course,” said Nabil Bazerji,
64. “Because we can’t continue like this, Lebanon was never in the position
that it is in now.”
A new generation of independent candidates ran
hoping to kindle the kind of change that a 2019 protest movement failed to
deliver, and they looked likely to do better than the single assembly seat they
clinched last time.
But most of parliament’s 128 seats are expected to
remain in the grip of the entrenched groups blamed for the country’s woes —
chiefly the economic downturn that is the worst crisis since the 1975–1990
civil war.
Turnout in the election was low, with about 32
percent of registered voters casting their ballots by 5pm (1400 GMT), according
to the interior ministry.
Most polls closed two hours later, with a few
stations remaining open for those still waiting inside, as the vote count
began, Lebanon’s national news agency said.
Results are expected Monday.
“It seems almost impossible to imagine Lebanon
voting for more of the same,” said Sam Heller, an analyst with the Century
Foundation. “And yet that appears to be the likeliest outcome.”
Years of crisis
Lebanon’s crisis has been so
severe that more than 80 percent of the population is now considered poor by
the UN, with the most desperate increasingly attempting perilous boat crossings
to flee to Europe.
The Lebanese pound has lost 95 percent of its value,
people’s savings are blocked in banks, the minimum wage won’t fill a car with
fuel and mains electricity comes on only two hours a day.
Deepening the country’s woes, much of the capital
Beirut was devastated by the deadly August 2020 explosion of volatile chemicals
that had been left for years in a portside warehouse, one of the largest
non-nuclear blasts ever recorded.
Top political barons have stalled an investigation
into the disaster, and legal proceedings against the Central Bank governor over
alleged financial crimes are equally floundering.
Lebanon, once
described as the Switzerland of the Middle East, ranked second-to-last behind
Afghanistan in the latest World Happiness Index released in March.
The army deployed across the country Sunday to
secure the election, which Lebanon’s international donors have stressed is a
prerequisite for financial aid crucial to rescue it from bankruptcy.
After an underwhelming campaign stifled by the
all-consuming economic turmoil, voting was only disrupted by minor incidents in
some polling stations.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah group and its allies
threatened independent observers of the Lebanese Association for Democratic
Elections (Lade) at polling stations, the association said.
Despite government assurances that polling stations would
have power on election day, some voters had to use their phones’ torches.
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