Lebanon's interior ministry completed on Tuesday the registration of candidates for the May 15 unicameral parliamentary elections. Al-Wataniya news agency reported that the number of citizens who have decided to run in the elections has reached 958, 136 of whom are women.
Bassam Mawlawi, head of the republic's Interior Ministry, confirmed that the authorities intend to hold the popular vote on time. "Seven thousand polling stations will open all over the country on election day," he said at a meeting with governors in Beirut.
The elections for the House of Deputies (128 seats) will be held on the basis of a proportional electoral system, allowing representatives from all religious communities to enter parliament. The president of the republic, Michel Aoun, said in a televised address that "the upcoming elections will be free, transparent, and held in a democratic atmosphere".
The Strong Lebanon bloc, led by the leader of the pro-presidential Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), Jebran Basil, won the 2018 elections. He acted in alliance with the Shia Amal and Hezbollah parties, with pro-Syrian factions also joining the parliamentary majority.
On March 13, Basil announced that the FPM would maintain an electoral alliance with the Shia tandem, but would "reserve the freedom to maneuver politically."
Opposition camp
The FPM's opponent is the right-wing Lebanese Forces (LF) party led by Samir Geagea, a former commander of Christian militias during the 1975-1990 civil war.
The LF leader is going to the polls under the slogan of freeing Lebanon from Iranian domination. "Our battle is to stand up for an identity when state institutions have been seized and the operation of the constitution is paralyzed," he told his supporters on Monday.
According to Al Akhbar newspaper, Geagea tried to form an electoral alliance with supporters of the Sunni al-Mustaqbal movement after its leader, former prime minister Saad Hariri, announced on January 24 that he was leaving the political scene. However, according to the publication, those efforts failed.
On the last day of registration, former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who had hoped to unite independent Sunni politicians opposed to Iranian influence, announced his withdrawal from the struggle. Against this background, it became known that Islamists had nominated their parliamentary candidates in Beirut and Akkar.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Creative Commons
Based on materials from TASS