Engineers participate in the 2021 elections. (Credit: S.H./L'Orient-Le Jour)
BEIRUT — Monday saw a new setback for the protest movement in Beirut's Order of Engineers: after a historic victory by protest figures in 2021, traditional parties nevertheless won Saturday's council election within the influential syndicate.
Ruling parties, including Hezbollah, the Amal Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement, won four of the five seats in the council, while protest-affiliated civil society candidates managed to get only one member elected to the council.
Merely 4,000 engineers, equivalent to 10 percent of the nearly 39,000 members eligible to vote, participated in the election, said Divina Abou Jaoudeh, outgoing president of the architects' branch at the council.
"The new results will certainly affect the room for maneuver of the President of the Order Aref Yassine," who is part of the protest movement, Abou Jaoudeh added.
Hala Younes, one of the protest candidates in this year's election who failed to win a seat, said there was "a slackening at the beginning of the financial collapse that was exacerbated following the revolution, after the Order's money was blocked in the banks."
She said that the main issue in the election was to unlock this money to cover members' pensions. The money amounted to $400 million before the crisis, she claimed.
Younes also emphasized the need to "use specialists, especially in managing the Council's budget, dues, medical insurance and pensions."