Rifaat Nayef al-Masry, announced on 28 April his candidacy withdrawal from the Lebanese Forces-associated Building the State list in the Baalbek-Hermel. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT – Hundreds of preferential votes have gone to waste in the 2022 parliament elections due to unofficial candidacy withdrawals, our data show. At least four parliamentary candidates and one electoral list have announced that they withdrew their candidacy after the deadline, making their withdrawals unrecognized by the law.
Here’s what we know:
• The deadline for candidates to officially withdraw through the Interior Ministry closed on March 30; thus the names of candidates who withdrew as of April 1 remained on electoral lists, since withdrawals announced after the said deadline are not recognized under Lebanese electoral law.
• In Beirut II, the Madinati party withdrew its “Beirut Madinati” electoral list in but still gained 358 votes for the list. Two of the candidates on the list, Sara Yassine and Paula Rbeiz, decided to continue the race despite the list’s withdrawal, winning 84 and 97 preferential votes respectively. Meanwhile, among the withdrawn candidates from the list, Nahida Khalil got 66 preferential votes, Faysal Tamrawi got 25, Rima Abou Chakra received 15 and Maha Rassi received 12 votes.
• In North I, the "Akkar Revolts" list supported by opposition groups close to the protest movement, withdrew days before the election but received 1,371 list votes, while its candidates received a total of 1,286 preferential votes. In Bekaa II, the "Towards Change" list, which withdrew at the same time, garnered 192 votes, while its candidates received 169 preferential votes.
• In Baalbek-Hermel, Rifaat Nayef al-Masry got 62 votes despite having announced on April 28 the withdrawal of his candidacy from the Lebanese Forces-associated “Building the State” list. Heymen Abbas Mcheik who announced his withdrawal from the same list on April 24 in support of Amal and Hezbollah’s “Hope and Loyalty” list running in the same district received five votes. Ramez Amhaz, who had been on the same list, announced on April 22 his withdrawal from the elections in a press conference in the town of Labweh, but 14 people voted for him later on in May 15.
• None of the candidates listed above garnered enough votes to win a seat.
• Browse our full dataset of candidate and list vote tallies here.