Lebanon held its first municipal elections since 2016 last month in a show of the new government’s resolve that Lebanon should pursue a path towards stability despite the war with Israel between September and November 2024.
The elections were held on a weekly basis throughout May nationwide: in the Mount Lebanon region on 4 May; the North and Akkar on 11 May; Beirut, the Bekaa, and Baalbek-Hermel on 18 May; and in the South and Nabatieh on 24 May.
Since 2016, municipal elections in Lebanon have been postponed three times. This time around the government led by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam insisted on adhering to the scheduled date.
The elections in the South and Nabatieh on 24 May proved the most challenging due to the large-scale destruction in southern towns and villages caused by the war with Israel. This impeded the conduct of elections in areas along the border front, necessitating the relocation of polling stations in Nabatieh and Tyre.
On 22 and 23 May, Israeli aircraft launched an intensive series of air strikes across the South, targeting what were claimed to be Hizbullah military positions.
Despite suffering the aftermath of the war, voter participation in the South was notable, reaching 36.9 per cent, though overall turnout was lower than in 2016, when voter turnout in the South and Nabatieh was 48 per cent.
However, the popularity of the Hizbullah-Amal Movement alliance, which ran under the “Development and Loyalty Lists,” remained unaffected. Approximately 109 out of 272 municipalities, or 40 per cent, were secured by acclamation, while the remainder witnessed competitive contests.
The lists of Hizbullah and Amal achieved sweeping victories, signalling continued support for Hizbullah despite the devastation inflicted on southern towns and villages during the recent conflict.
Although the elections were nominally centred on development agendas, they also served as a political referendum reaffirming the South’s alignment with Hizbullah’s agenda.
However, some observers argue that Hizbullah encountered competition due to its inability to secure a greater number of municipalities by acclamation, suggesting that the group was unable always to consolidate its influence in the face of opposition lists backed by independents and left-leaning groups.
But in general the elections confirmed that Hizbullah’s core support in the South remains intact and that its alliance with the Amal Movement remains strong. They also reaffirmed its partnership with the Free Patriotic Movement, which secured several seats, particularly in Jezzine.
Hizbullah faced challenges in fully displacing the Lebanese Forces, whose candidates succeeded in several Jezzine villages.
According to observers, Hizbullah exerted pressure on rival candidates to withdraw ahead of election day, thereby securing uncontested victories. This meant marginalising local Shia voices seeking independent representation outside Hizbullah’s framework.
Hizbullah thus succeeded in projecting the image it sought – that the people of the South remain loyal and supportive, despite the devastation wrought by the recent war with Israel.
However, the residents’ return to vote in the southern villages allowed them to revisit their homes and witness the extensive destruction there for which there is little prospect of rehabilitation or reconstruction in the foreseeable future.
Meanwhile, the international community has made the future of Lebanon’s reconstruction conditional upon Hizbullah’s disarmament.
The municipal elections reflected the resurgence of the traditional political parties in Lebanon at the expense of civil society-driven forces of change, and the resulting political map bears a resemblance to the landscape before the 2019 uprising as a result.
Some observers attribute this to the fragmented, conflict-ridden, and ineffective performance of the forces of change in the Lebanese Parliament since 2022, which appears to have repelled voters and led them to elect established sectarian parties.
Women’s representation in the elections remained limited, comprising only 10.3 per cent of municipal councils, 2.4 per cent of mukhtar (representative) posts, and 16.4 per cent of the elective councils that support the mukhtars.
Lebanon is now anticipating a visit by US Deputy Special Envoy for the Middle East Morgan Ortagus after the Eid Al-Adha holiday. She is expected to shift Washington’s policy towards Lebanon from a framework of flexible to strict conditionality.
Ortagus is set to negotiate the swifter disarmament of Hizbullah across the country with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and not solely south of the Litani River in exchange for injecting the investments needed for reconstruction and economic recovery.
She is also expected to present a new set of conditions, including the withdrawal of arms from Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon beginning in mid-June, thereby leaving them in the hands of the Lebanese state.
She will reportedly address the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon and examine potential avenues for resolving border disputes between Lebanon and Israel to lay the groundwork for a Lebanese-Israeli peace agreement to be pursued in parallel with an agreement, still being prepared, between Israel and Syria.
The US has brokered a ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel, bringing an end to the two-month war, and an international military committee chaired by the US has been established to investigate violations committed by both parties.
However, the committee has not taken tangible measures against repeated Israeli breaches of the agreement. Moreover, Israel’s withdrawal from five strategic hills in Southern Lebanon along the shared border has been delayed.
Israel’s repeated shelling of Southern Lebanon and parts of the Bekaa Valley has led to the killing of Hizbullah members and the destruction of some of the group’s positions, according to Israel.
On several previous occasions, Aoun reaffirmed the principle that all arms in Lebanon must be under the authority of the state. However, he has stressed that this must be achieved through dialogue with Hizbullah in order to prevent the risk of civil conflict.
A delegation from Hizbullah’s parliamentary bloc visited the Presidential Palace in Beirut hours after the municipal elections concluded in the South. The visit suggested that Hizbullah was leveraging the popularity it had garnered in the elections, and it made no attempt to conceal its reliance on southern popular support.
Meanwhile, Lebanon is poised to face mounting pressure during Ortagus’ visit and to be given deadlines for the disarmament of Hizbullah and the Palestinian camps and for the withdrawal of Palestinian resistance leaders from the camps in return for the injection of reconstruction funds.
Washington is adamant about the termination of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) mission in the South, while Beirut wishes to see the UNIFIL continue its mandate as a safeguard against the resurgence of war.
The municipal elections in the South exhibited the strength of Hizbullah’s popular support, offering the group a justification to resist increasingly stringent American demands. At the same time, the Lebanese state finds itself unable to wholly reject the US conditions, given its need for financial assistance and to begin the reconstruction of areas devastated by war.
Yet, the state is equally incapable of fully complying with the demands because they are tantamount to conceding to Israeli dominance and hegemony.
Caught between these two poles, Aoun is attempting to extend an understanding with Hizbullah on shrinking, and eventually terminating, its military role and the phased dismantling of its arsenal without exposing Lebanon to Israeli hegemony.
However, it has become evident that the US-guaranteed ceasefire agreement has neither halted the war nor safeguarded Lebanon’s sovereignty amid the semi-daily Israeli violations in the South, the continued occupation of the five hills, and the freezing of opportunities for post-war reconstruction.
This complicates the US-Lebanon negotiations expected to begin during Ortagus’ visit. While Hizbullah has expressed its readiness to pull back its weapons south of the Litani River, it remains resolute in retaining them elsewhere, deferring decisions on their use to the Lebanese state.
However, Hizbullah lacks the leverage to sustain a hardline stance on its armaments.
It may be pinning its hopes on understandings between Tehran and Washington in the upcoming negotiations, which could lead to a tacit tolerance of its arsenal outside the Litani zone.
Alternatively, it may be betting on a delay, anticipating a shift in the US focus away from Lebanon and Hizbullah’s arms or a softening of the conditions, which could still allow for reconstruction funds to flow.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 5 June, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: