Voting was under way in Lebanon, kicking off the country’s first parliamentary elections in nearly a decade after perpetual delays causing the inability to resolve the country’s most pressing issues.
Sunday’s vote sees 583 candidates compete for the 128 seats in parliament through 77 rival lists, spread across 15 districts.
Under the terms of a new electoral law that introduced proportional representation, voters will be casting two votes; one for a list of candidates and one for a single preferred candidate.
There are up to 3.8 million registered voters in the country. More than 700,000 voters will be casting their ballots for the first time.
About 6,800 polling stations were opened across the country, under the presence of the gendarmerie.
A young couple says: “I am honestly very happy. It’s been a while since we last voted,” said Nisreen Affar, an insurance company employee. “I am happy with the change this will bring about – something we have a role in, something that has our imprint,” she said. “We have to serve the country for it to serve us.” Nisreen’s husband, Elias Affar, a civil engineer, said he hopes for change. “If our choices are wrong, we will sort it out in four years,” said Affar.
The new electoral law drove political parties to form a spectrum of new and unlikely alliances on candidate lists across the country.
Lebanese Army forces were deployed across the country on Saturday in preparation for the election and its aftermath.
The elections are taking place for the first time after nine years of political turbulence that left the country without a president for two years, and saw parliament extend its tenure several times.
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