After Georges Okais and Melhem Riachi, LF lawmaker Fadi Karam announces he will not run

A third Lebanese Forces (LF) lawmaker, Fadi Karam, announced Saturday that he will not run in the upcoming legislative elections scheduled for May, following in the footsteps of fellow party MPs Georges Okais and Melhem Riachi.

“As the end of the mandate of the Parliament elected in 2022 approaches, I announce the end of my parliamentary duties after 13 years of commitment, with a clear conscience for having carried out my work in service of Koura and Lebanon,” Karam said in a statement.

The announcement comes just days after LF MPs Georges Okais (Zahle) and Melhem Riachi (Metn) said they would not seek reelection. Okais explained that his decision, shared on Facebook on Feb. 2, “results from personal reflection and a desire to continue defending my convictions from another position, without abandoning my principles or political commitment.” He added that “this choice does not mean a withdrawal from public life, but a conscious reorientation to continue defending sovereignty, individual freedoms and the rule of law.”

For his part, Riachi revealed Wednesday on social media that the party leadership had sidelined him, informing him that he would “not be a candidate in the legislative elections.”

The move is theoretically in line with the LF’s electoral strategy, which focuses on promoting new faces to project the image of a dynamic party open to change. However, the sidelining also appears to be driven by electoral calculations.

Despite uncertainty surrounding the diaspora vote and the outcome of the ballot, the legislative elections have been scheduled for May 10, 2026, for residents. Members of the diaspora will vote earlier: May 1 in some Arab countries and May 3 elsewhere. Public employees assigned to work on election day are expected to vote on May 5.

The deadline for submitting candidacies for the May elections opened Tuesday, as the necessary administrative and logistical preparations near completion. Candidates may file their applications until midnight on March 10. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri was the first to submit his candidacy.

The issue of expatriate voting continues to divide Parliament, and concerns over a possible postponement of the elections have surfaced in recent weeks. Led by the Lebanese Forces, parties advocating an amendment to the electoral law argue that expatriates should be allowed to vote for all 128 MPs, as in the previous two elections, rather than for six additional seats reserved for the diaspora, as stipulated by the 2017 electoral law. The latter option is backed by the Shiite tandem of Amal and Hezbollah, at the urging of the speaker of Parliament.