| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
All 128 seats to the Parliament of Lebanon | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Turnout | 46.5% 6% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Member State of the Arab League |
---|
General elections were held in Lebanon in May and June 2005 to elect the 128 members of the Parliament of Lebanon. They were the second elections in thirty years without a Syrian military or intelligence presence in Lebanon. These elections were the first in Lebanese history to be won outright by a single electoral block and were also the first to be monitored by the United Nations. [1]
The first round was held on May 29, 2005 in Beirut. The Rafik Hariri Martyr List, a coalition of Saad Hariri's Current for the Future, the Progressive Socialist Party and other anti-Syrian parties, won all 19 seats. Saad Hariri is the son of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri who was assassinated in February 2005, in a car bombing in Beirut. The coalition left one seat free for a Shiite candidate from Hezbollah.
The second round was held on June 5 in South Lebanon and Nabatyeh Governorate. The Resistance and Development Bloc, a joint ticket by the two main Shiite parties Amal and Hezbollah, in addition to Bahiya Al-Hariri, the sister of the assassinated late Prime Minister Rafic Al-Hariri and Oussama Saad from Sidon, won all 23 seats. Official tallies showed the Resistance and Development Bloc receiving more than 80% of the vote.
The third round was held on June 12 in Beqaa and Mount Lebanon. In Mount Lebanon the Hariri List won 17 seats, as did the Aoun Alliance, made up of Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement and two smaller parties; Hezbollah won one. In Beqaa, the Resistance and Development Bloc won 11 seats, the Hariri List eight, and the Aoun Alliance four. Aoun re-stamped his authority as a major Christian leader on the political scene.
The fourth and final round was held on June 20 in North Governorate. The Hariri List won all 28 seats, giving them a total of 72 of the National Assembly's 128 seats.
Party or alliance | Seats | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
March 14 Alliance | Future Movement | 36 | ||
Progressive Socialist Party | 16 | |||
Lebanese Forces | 6 | |||
Qornet Shehwan Gathering | 6 | |||
Tripoli Bloc independents | 3 | |||
Democratic Renewal (Tripoli Bloc) | 1 | |||
Democratic Left Movement (Tripoli Bloc) | 1 | |||
Total | 69 | |||
March 8 Alliance | Free Patriotic Movement | 15 | ||
Amal Movement | 14 | |||
Hezbollah | 14 | |||
Popular Bloc | 4 | |||
Armenian Revolutionary Federation | 2 | |||
Murr Bloc | 1 | |||
Syrian Social Nationalist Party | 2 | |||
Others | 5 | |||
Independents | 2 | |||
Total | 128 |
Turnout was estimated around 46.5%.
Lebanon is a parliamentary democratic republic within the overall framework of confessionalism, a form of consociationalism in which the highest offices are proportionately reserved for representatives from certain religious communities. The constitution of Lebanon grants the people the right to change their government. However, from the mid-1970s until the parliamentary elections in 1992, the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990) precluded the exercise of political rights.
The Progressive Socialist Party is a Lebanese political party. Its confessional base is in the Druze sect and its regional base is in Mount Lebanon Governorate, especially the Chouf District. Founded by Kamal Jumblatt in 1949, the party was led by his son Walid Jumblatt between 1977 and 25 May 2023, on 25 June 2023 the son of Walid Taymur Jumblatt was officially consecrated as leader of the PSP.
Rafic Bahaa El Deen al-Hariri, also known as Rafiq al-Hariri, was a Lebanese business tycoon and politician, who served as the Prime Minister of Lebanon from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 until he resigned on 20 October 2004, before his assassination in 2005.
Michel Naim Aoun is a Lebanese politician and former military general who served as the President of Lebanon from 31 October 2016 until 30 October 2022.
The Cedar Revolution or the Independence Intifada was a chain of demonstrations in Lebanon triggered by the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. The popular movement was remarkable for its avoidance of violence, peaceful approach, and its total reliance on methods of civil resistance.
The Free Patriotic Movement is a Lebanese political party. Founded by Michel Aoun in 1994, the party is currently led by Aoun's son-in-law Gebran Bassil since 2015.
Saad El-Din Rafik Al-Hariri is a Lebanese-Saudi politician who served as the prime minister of Lebanon from 2009 to 2011 and 2016 to 2020. The son of Rafic Hariri, he founded and has been leading the Future Movement party since 2007. He is seen as "the strongest figurehead" of the March 14 Alliance.
The Lebanese Forces is a Lebanese Christian-based political party and former militia during the Lebanese Civil War. It currently holds 19 of the 128 seats in Lebanon's parliament and is therefore the largest party in parliament.
Fouad Siniora is a Lebanese politician, a former Prime Minister of Lebanon, a position he held from 19 July 2005 to 25 May 2008. He stepped down on 9 November 2009 in favor of Saad Hariri, the late Rafik Hariri's son. He is the leader of the parliamentary group of the Future Movement.
The Future Movement is a Lebanese political party affiliated with the Sunni sect. The party was founded as a coalition in 1995 led by Rafic Hariri which was known as the Hariri Bloc but was officially founded in 2007. The party is led by Saad Hariri.
Along with the Amal Movement, Hezbollah is one of the two main parties representing the Shia community, Lebanon's largest religious bloc. Amal has made a commitment to carrying out its activities through political means, but remains a partial fighting force aiding Hezbollah when the need arises.
The March 14 Alliance, named after the date of the Cedar Revolution, was a coalition of political parties and independents in Lebanon formed in 2005 that were united by their anti-Syrian stance and by their opposition to the March 8 Alliance. It was led by Saad Hariri, Walid Jumblatt and Samir Geagea, as well as other prominent figures.
The 2006–2008 Lebanese protests were a series of political protests and sit-ins in Lebanon that began on 1 December 2006, led by groups that opposed the US and Saudi-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and ended on 21 May 2008 with the signing of the Doha Agreement. The opposition was made up of Hezbollah, Amal, and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM); a number of smaller parties were also involved, including the Marada party, the Lebanese Communist Party and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. A majority of the members of the government were part of the anti-Syrian March 14 Alliance, a coalition of political parties and independents in Lebanon. The two groups were also divided along religious lines, with most Sunnis and Druze supporting the government, and most Shi'a supporting the opposition. The Christian community was split between the two factions, with Michel Aoun, the leader of the FPM, claiming to have more than 70% support among the Christians, based on the results of the 2005 parliamentary election.
The March 8 Alliance is a coalition of political parties and independents in Lebanon formed in 2005 that are united by their pro-Syrian stance and their opposition to the former March 14 Alliance. It was the ruling coalition in Lebanon with the government headed by Prime Minister Najib Mikati from June 2011 until March 2013. Main parties of the March 8 Alliance are part of the third Cabinet of Najib Mikati since 2021.
General elections were held in Lebanon between 18 August and 15 September 1996. Independent candidates won the majority of seats, although most of them were considered members of various blocs. Voter turnout was 43.3%.
The formation of a new government led by Najib Mikati follows five months of negotiations after the fall of the Saad Hariri government. Mikati formed a controversial 30-minister cabinet. Following ruptures and tensions and two previous threats to resign, Mikati finally resigned on 23 March 2013. Tammam Salam was tasked to form a new government on 6 April 2013.
Tammam Saeb Salam is a Lebanese politician who was the Prime Minister of Lebanon from February 2014 until December 2016. He also served as the acting President of Lebanon from May 2014 until October 2016 in his capacity as prime minister. He previously served in the government of Lebanon as minister of culture from 2008 to 2009.
Osama Maarouf Saad, is a Lebanese politician, MP, and the leader of the Popular Nasserist Organization (PNO) movement, founded by his father Maarouf Saad, a leftist politician and mayor of Sidon whose violent assassination in 1975 helped spark the Lebanese Civil War. Osama’s family is a prominent Sunni Muslim family in Sidon, but he aligns himself with the Shiite Hezbollah and the Iran-led “axis of resistance”. He was subject to Hezbollah's online threats in 2021 after his PNO condemned the assassination of the anti-Hezbollah Lokman Slim.
General elections were held in Lebanon on 15 May 2022. The country has for several years been the subject of chronic political instability as well as a serious economic crisis aggravated by the 2020 explosions that hit the Port of Beirut and faced large-scale demonstrations against the political class.