Portraits of President Michel Aoun and FPM leader Gebran Bassil at the party HQ in Sin el-Fil. (Reuters/Mohamed Azakir)
Neither of the two pro-thawra (revolution) lists was able to win a seat at the end of polling, in which 47.39 percent of registered voters took part.
Traditional political parties therefore shared the seats, with three seats (including the two Shiite ones) for the list created by the alliance between Gebran Bassil’s Free Patriotic Movement, Hezbollah, and Amal. Three other seats went to the list sponsored by Samir Geagea’s Lebanese Forces, Walid Joumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party and Camille Dory Chamoun’s National Liberal Party.
The results
- As expected, the FPM (two seats in 2018) managed to take advantage of the renewal of its alliance with Amal and Hezbollah to relatively limit its losses and reelect Alain Aoun to his Maronite seat.
- The LF retained the Maronite seat of Pierre Bou Assi, won in 2018, and were also successful in getting Dory Chamoun to Parliament, snatching the second Maronite seat.
- Joumblatt's PSP (one seat in 2018) managed to see its Druze MP Hadi Aboul Hosn reelected to a second parliamentary term.
- Amal and Hezbollah retained their monopoly of Shiite representation in this area, despite the fact that Wassef el-Harakeh, a Shiite lawyer hostile to both parties, was one of the leading figures of the protest movement and was thought to have great chances for a breakthrough.
What to remember
- Despite having succeeded in attracting voters from the diaspora, the protest movement groups in Baabda paid a heavy price for their divisions, which largely played into the hands of the traditional parties.
- One of the two lists, led by the National Bloc, received nearly 13,000 votes, not far from the electoral threshold.
- In the battle between two lists, the FPM entered the fray without outgoing MP Hikmat Dib, who broke away from the party a few months ago, which allowed the LF to score several points.
- The Christian party first retained the Maronite seat of Pierre Bou Assi, who also won in 2018. The LF also managed to propel Chamoun to Parliament, snatching the second Maronite seat (after having lost the 2018 competition in the Chouf), further weakening Gebran Bassil’s party, which has seen its popularity decline since 2019.
This story was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour