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On May 15, 2022, Lebanon held its first parliamentary elections since the 2019 national uprising. While political parties were frantically spending money on their campaigns, the anti-establishment groups were scrambling to form electoral alliances.  Although the elections were held under d..

In light of the government’s decision on 17 October 2019, to increase taxes and impose a fee on WhatsApp, protests broke across the country in an unprecedented way.

It took 252 days for Saad Hariri to finalize his new government lineup. While established political interests dominate the Council of Ministers, the balance of power has clearly shifted both across and within parties. Consider first the new cabinet lineup: Ten seats were allocated to the F..

Five months have passed since caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri was nominated to form a new government. Since then, he has struggled to strike a balance between domestic and regional interests. While it might take some time for ostensibly disparate interests to align, once formed, the forthco..

While there was genuine hope that adopting a proportional representation system could pave the way for political reform in Lebanon, its impact was largely confined to shifting the balance of power among the same political elite. Many of the new faces in Lebanon’s recently-elected parliamen..

Eight years on and Lebanon still does not have an electoral law. Despite the many draft proposals and meetings by the Council of Ministers (COM) and parliamentary sub-committees, political parties appear more likely to either hold elections according to the so-called 1960 law or illegally extend..

In a few weeks’ time, Lebanon’s fourth round of municipal elections since 1998 are scheduled to be held. This event highlights three key and interrelated challenges facing the country. The first is whether the ruling political elite will actually decide to hold municipal elections. If held, the ..

The government just does not seem to get it. Protests that kicked off in Lebanon a few weeks ago are no longer about the garbage crisis. They are fundamentally about the failure of successive Lebanese governments to provide basic services for citizens. They are about corruption associated with m..