A pivotal political fight will take place in Lebanon in May 2025: the municipality and mukhtar elections. These elections come in light of one of the deepest crises Lebanon has experienced since the end of the civil war. A statement issued by the Media Office of the Minister of Interior Ahmed Hajjar announces the following dates for municipal and mayoral elections by governorates: In Mount Lebanon on May 4, 2025. In North Lebanon and Akkar on May 11, 2025. In Beirut, Bekaa, and Baalbek-Hermel on May 18, 2025. In South Lebanon and Nabatieh on May 25, 2025. Voter bodies will be called to vote at least one month prior to the election date in each governorate.
The current state of municipalities
While the number of municipal councils currently stands at 1,055, comprising 12,474 members, only 944 of them remain active and face the risk of disruption. There are 84 councils that have been completely dissolved, with their affairs managed by district commissioners or governors. Additionally, 27 councils were newly established following the 2016 elections, but their administration is also overseen by these officials, as they have not yet held any municipal elections. Approximately 30% of municipal councils in Lebanon suffer from vacancies, and slightly less than 10% are completely dissolved. These are striking figures, yet by-elections for these municipalities have been bypassed, leaving them under the jurisdiction of governors or district commissioners within their respective areas. It is worth noting that in some regions, a governor or commissioner manages the affairs of more than one municipality simultaneously. This has led to a decline in municipal and developmental work, as well as maintaining order in a significant number of municipalities, where the governor lacks the capacity for daily follow-up given their already assigned duties.
Lebanon crisis has had a huge blow on many municipalities. Those have manifested themselves through an accumulation of economic, political, and social woes since 2019, such as sudden and severe devaluation of the local currency, gambling with the value and supply of the Lebanese pound; lack of essential goods; pervasive corruption and clientelism; endemic power cuts; increase in seasonality; increase in poverty and unemployment rates; inflation; external political and economic interventions; failing financial and banking systems; a nonexistent health system; the crippling consequences of the pandemic; and the collapse and explosion of the port of Beirut. A case in point is The Municipality of Beirut which has been operating on a day-to-day basis, unable to undertake developmental projects. Its operations are sustained by contributions from associations and individuals, such as recent donations for solar panels for the municipal building. Meanwhile, the municipal council’s role has become largely ceremonial. The municipality previously reclaimed the waste collection file from the government due to suspicions of corruption. However, it had to return the file after being unable to pay the contracted company’s dues. Financial troubles persist with rising salary demands and the depletion of municipal funds in the central bank. Without sufficient income, and with outdated taxation and asset management systems, the municipality faces imminent bankruptcy if no action is taken. The current number of employees is estimated at around 1,500 (half of whom are contractors who benefit from full health coverage and salaries equivalent to those of permanent employees), along with 4,000 retirees who receive salaries and full health coverage for themselves and their families. Consequently, raising wages would cost the municipal fund 450 billion Lebanese pounds to pay these salaries, not to mention the operational costs of the municipal headquarters (such as securing diesel fuel, for example). Meanwhile, the municipal council’s assets at the Central Bank of Lebanon have dwindled to 800 billion Lebanese pounds, down from what was once over 600 million U.S. dollars.
Highest problematic
Despite their high hopes for a strong performance, new partnerships and alliances are expected to impose themselves as the biggest challenges of 2025. However these will lead to more political frustration observers say. First of all, there is a lack of a common vision and policy, and permanent internal disagreements. Disagreements among the Future Movement, the Lebanese Forces, and the Progressive Socialist Party have been expressed on numerous occasions, including regarding many local issues. Such disagreements not only reinforce the local perception of the former alliance’s internal division but also give rise to regional fears. For example, there have been growing concerns in the region that the 2024 war has radically changed the Lebanese political landscape and, therefore, the local equations.
Examples of such impossible allegiances today are in Zahle District where eighty-four municipalities will run in the elections, in central Bekaa. These elections will witness a remarkable competition between the factions supported by Hezbollah and their allies on the one hand, and the traditional political parties on the other. Hezbollah’s influence is declining, especially after the repercussions of its failed war in 2024, its former military involvement in Syria, its violent repression of the peaceful protests in Lebanon, its assassination of leading politicians, and the transformation of a militarily named party into a politically named militia. In central Bekaa, this decline coincides with a social reality represented by poverty, neglection, and lack of public and private employment and services. These negative social and moral conditions create fertile ground for political deals and corrupt practices.
The Turnout issue
The issue of the turnout is again an important challenge for all runners. Lebanese elections observed considerable fluctuations in participation in the last round. Turnout has been highest at the beginning after the end of the war at around 50 percent in the 2005 elections. It then fell to 37 percent in 2009. In 2018 it again increased to 50 percent amid reform promises. As parties fail to deliver and events in the country deteriorated, turnout dropped to 27 percent in the upcoming elections. The low turnout and the divisions according to sect may have a strong impact on the municipal elections scheduled in May 2025.
For the Shiite electorate, preparations for the 2025 municipal elections revealed significant political divisions among the ranks of Lebanon’s opposition. Several towns and villages in Akkar, Baalbek, and Hermel are forming electoral lists opposed to traditional political sides NOWLEBANON sources affirm. In Baalbek, a city with a Shiite-majority population, there are fears of internal fighting between factions. People of the region could be preparing for the departure of the former maintainer of order of their neighborhood and are imagining a different fate within the Lebanese state, as new coalitions include people from different sects for the first time. For some electoral lists, Shiite party and movement voters also took part in the process. The creation of this new political framework echoes a similar moment in history: following the war in Lebanon, and especially after a significant agreement, lists in Baalbek are beginning to unite among regions, with political coalitions that associate members of different sects and religions.
In South Lebanon, the situation is much more sensitive. In the next electoral term, Hezbollah will have to confront the election of dozens of unpopular mayoral candidates and the need of reconstruction and spending in localities already affected by a budget deficit. The ability of the Shiite community to absorb losses from municipal councils will be tested there. Furthermore, since lists opposed to certain factions announce their candidacy for each town, Hezbollah would be confronted for the first time with the question of defending or not defending its lists at the risk of a confrontation that would weaken its status as the legitimate defender of the Shiite community in the face of the state’s injustice.
Potential New Partnerships
Parties and politicians from across the Lebanese political spectrum are exploring partnerships and alliances that capitalize on Hezbollah’s declining influence, whether real or perceived. The data we gathered both from interviews and local media indicate that various parties, especially those in the opposition including some Sunni factions, are exploring new potential coalitions among opposition parties. It often takes the shape of open negotiations among party leaders regarding the possibility of entering into alliances at local levels. Success or failure in the elections will hinge much on the ability of opposition forces to prosper at a local level because these elections will serve as an indicator of possible future national level outcomes. Unlike parliamentary elections, which are decided by external factors, municipal elections happen at a local level, among local constituents who know each other well. Therefore, unlike legislative elections, which generally leave little space for partnerships among local actors, usually those in firm control of local political webs, municipal elections may invite partnerships at the minute local level among otherwise opposing factions. Clearly, municipal elections are a manifestation of local politics but also reflect the nature of national politics. These elections serve as both an instrument of and stratification of the process of building political identities – a process that undergoes constant adaptation and adjustment during the course of everyday life.
Some of the prominent opposition factions exploring municipal partnerships are: the Lebanese Forces, the Free Patriotic Movement, and the Kataeb Party in the Mount Lebanon area; Druze political parties in the Chouf and Aley; the Future Movement and the Progressive Socialist Party in the North; and Shia opposition factions in Baalbek and Hermel. These parties believe that forging local partnerships in areas where their influence may be waning will serve as a force multiplier during the municipal elections, and thus help them redefine potential executive offices.
Possible scenarios
The upcoming local elections could also lead to the formation of new non-traditional opposition coalitions. The negotiations concerning the formation of the different alliances are far from being timid and oscillating between the a-bit-too-much presumptuous alliance models and incomplete or forced consultations.
At present, there are three borderline possible scenarios:
The negative dynamics of the current situation could encourage the parties and local leaders of the opposition to support closer alliances, despite their disagreements over the modalities of negotiation and the terms of these alliances. Faced with a weakened dual alliance, as a result of its failure to propose anything positive regarding the needs and aspirations of the population, the beneficiaries of the misery and the local divisions could see it in their benefit to set aside their differences regarding their different affinities – Islamist, leftist, liberal, or Kurdish – and thus organize a minimum of common action in order to respond together to the problems encountered at the local level. Citizens would not then have any choice but to vote for these coalitions, for they would not have any alternative parties to designate their vote towards.
Therefore, and since municipal elections often reflect restructurings of a local level, especially in the Sunni environment, the elections allow for the emergence and realization of specific local identities. In this context, municipal elections in the city of Baalbek are an example of the electors’ awakening within the geographic impoverishment of services that are provided to them by the state; the municipality head is responsible for these services, and they are characterized by sectarian and political partiality prior to the Taif Agreement. However, the most basic problem in this area is the lack of any alternative vision.
More defragmentation ?
Municipal elections in Lebanon are by far the least controversial of the country’s key polls. This, however, may not change soon due to the expansion of public frustration with the established political parties, and in light of the unprecedented collapse of the local currency, which has resulted in soaring inflation rates and heavy drops in standards of living, thus, creating a poisonous economic environment.
The upcoming elections could witness unprecedented outcomes that have either not been previously experienced or have simply stagnated. The potential results range from a further contraction and disintegration of existing political factions to a reconfiguration of a decreased political establishment stationed in the parliament, but still powerful enough to suppress any potentially threatening popular movement. Other possible outcomes include an overwhelming amount of new faces compromising the municipalities themselves and a divergence amongst Lebanese society, which would yield a very fragmented decentralized action. It is true that opposition parties and activists are seeing this newly obtained political void as a chance to reshape the Lebanese political landscape into a less confessional and fragmented system. Is this wishful thinking ?
Maan Barazy is an economist and founder and president of the National Council of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He tweets @maanbarazy
The views in this story reflect those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of NOW
