A voter casts a ballot in Lebanon's last parliamentary poll in 2018. (Credit: Joseph Eid/AFP)
BEIRUT — With just five days until the deadline to form electoral lists, many candidates are continuing to negotiate last minute deals.
In 2018, more than 300 candidates who registered to run did not make it onto lists, disqualifying them from appearing on the ballot, a pattern that is expected to be repeated this year. It is a costly failure — the fee to file for candidacy in the 2022 election was LL30 million (equivalent to $1,346 at the parallel market rate as of the end of the filing period, on March 15). A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry said candidates who do not make it onto lists do not get a refund of their filing fee.
Under the 2017 electoral law, each list must include candidates for at least 40 percent of the seats in a major district, as well as at least one seat in each minor district in those constituencies that have multiple minor districts inside them. So, for instance, in North III, which is broken up into the minor districts of Batroun, Bsharri, Koura and Zgharta, any list must include at least one candidate for each of those minor districts, which would also bring the list to at least four members, clearing the 40 percent threshold for the major district. In the 11-seat Beirut II district, which does not have minor districts, there must be a minimum of five candidates in order to clear the threshold of more than 40 percent.
Lists do not need to represent political parties—both partisan and unaffiliated candidates may form lists among themselves and grant one of themselves power of attorney to register the list on their collective behalf.
In order to see where the competition to form lists is likely to be the most intense, below is a comparison of the number of declared 2022 candidates for each seat versus the number of candidates who made it onto lists in 2018. It shows that several seats — notably the Sunni seats in Beirut II, Akkar, and Tripoli — have vastly more candidates than could fit on lists last time around. Whether they will make it to the lists this year remains to be seen. Candidates have until midnight on Monday to join a list.
