Electoral workers count ballots after the polls were closed during Lebanon's parliamentary election in Khiam, in southern Lebanon May 15, 2022. Reuters/Issam Abdallah
Beirut: Hezbollah has been dealt a blow in Lebanon's parliamentary election with preliminary results showing losses for some of its oldest allies and the Lebanese Forces party declaring significant gains.
With votes still being counted, the final results have yet to emerge for the first election since Lebanon's devastating economic meltdown and a huge port explosion in 2020 that shattered Beirut.
Hezbollah and its allies won 71 of parliament's 128 seats when Lebanon last voted in 2018, but whether they can cling on to a majority hinges on results not yet finalised.
Results declared point to a more fragmented parliament sharply polarised between allies and opponents of Hezbollah, an outcome analysts said could lead to deadlock as factions hash out a powersharing deal over top state positions.
"If the deals of the past are dead, what kind of politics do we have apart from more sectarian tensions and a replay of some of the clashes we have seen?" said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
In one of the most startling upsets, Hezbollah-allied Druze politician Talal Arslan, scion of one of Lebanon's oldest political dynasties who was first elected in 1992, lost his seat to Mark Daou, a newcomer running on a reform agenda, according to the latter's campaign manager and a Hezbollah official.
Initial results also indicated wins for at least five other independents who have campaigned to reform and bring to account politicians blamed for steering Lebanon into the worst crisis since its 1975-90 civil war.
"Major blow"
Gains reported by the Lebanese Forces (LF), which is vehemently opposed to Hezbollah, mean it would overtake the Hezbollah-allied Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) as the biggest Christian party in parliament.
The LF won at least 20 seats, up from 15 in 2018, said the head of its press office, Antoinette Geagea.
The FPM had won up to 16 seats, down from 18 in 2018, Sayed Younes, the head of its electoral machine, told Reuters.
The FPM has been the biggest Christian party in parliament since its founder, President Michel Aoun, returned from exile in 2005 in France. Aoun and LF leader Samir Geagea were civil war adversaries.
The LF, established as a militia during Lebanon's 15-year civil war, has repeatedly called for Hezbollah to give up its arsenal.
"Hezbollah's Christian allies have lost the claim to represent the majority of Christians," said Hage Ali, describing it as a "major blow" to the group's claim of having cross-sectarian support for its powerful arsenal.
The next parliament must elect a speaker - a post held by Hezbollah ally, the Amal Movement of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri since 1992 - before nominating a prime minister to form a cabinet. Later this year, lawmakers are due to elect a president to replace Aoun, whose term ends on Oct. 31.
Any delay in the cabinet formation - a process that can take months - would spell further delay to reforms needed to tackle the economic crisis and unlock support from the International Monetary Fund and donor nations.
