A voter casts a ballot in Lebanon's last parliamentary poll in 2018. (Credit: Joseph Eid/AFP)
Editor's note: To see the full list of candidate names and lists by district, scroll down.
BEIRUT —The period for lists of candidates to file ended last night at midnight with 103 lists having been registered with the Interior Ministry. Collectively, these lists feature 718 candidates, 20 percent more names than were featured on the 2018 lists when 583 candidates made it onto 77 lists.
The district with the largest number of lists is North II (Tripoli-Minnieh-Dennieh). Unsurprisingly, it is also the district with the largest number of candidates at this point in the race. One hundred people are competing for North II’s 11 seats. South II, in comparison, has only 21 candidates for its seven seats.
Among the candidates who made it onto lists are 118 women, meaning that 75 percent of women candidates who filed for the election eventually made it onto lists. This compares favorably to the male candidates, of whom 68 percent of those who entered the elections made it onto lists. But men are still the overwhelming majority of list members, at 84 percent.
More than a third of all lists in the country, 38, lack a single woman candidate. Not a single woman made it onto a list in South III, where a joint Amal-Hezbollah list is competing against an opposition list as well as a third list called “Voice of the South.”
Of the 89 sitting MPs who entered the race last month, 87 of them found their way onto lists. Just two incumbents failed to join a list: Imad Wakim (Lebanese Forces/Beirut I) and Mario Aoun (Free Patriotic Movement/Mt Lebanon IV).
Of the 19 former MPs from previous years who sought to re-enter Parliament this year, 15 of them made it onto lists and four did not. Those who did not make the cut are Abdallah Hanna, Assem Qanso, Ghassan Moukheiber, and Samer Saadeh.
Observers of Lebanon’s Oct. 17 opposition movements will likely spend some of the coming days deciphering the implications of the list formation process for the emerging political movements. But, already, it appears to be a story of fragmentation as much as it may turn out to be one of coalition-building.
Beirut I, for instance, boasts three separate opposition lists, led by Citizens in a State (MMFD), Tahalof Watani and allies, and Beirut Madinati, respectively. They will compete against a joint Free Patriotic Movement-Tashnag list, a Lebanese Forces List, and an alliance between Kataeb and MP Jean Talouzian (an independent close to Antoun Sehnaoui). Most districts contain more than one list claiming the mantle of the Oct. 17 protest movement or similar revolutionary symbols, whether or not other opposition movements recognize them as allies.
You may search all of the lists by district on our website, here, and for your convenience, below is the full list of candidates and lists.
Additional reporting contributed by Iva K. , Kim Makhlouf, and Salah Hijazi.
