Lebanon votes first time after a gap of 9 years

Beirut : Lebanon’s first national elections in nine years were marked by a tepid turnout yesterday, reflecting voter frustration over corruption and a stagnant economy. Politicians urged citizens to vote and security forces struggled to maintain order as fights broke out in and around polling stations.

President Michel Aoun appealed to voters to vote in a televised address an hour before polls closed. “If you want change, you should exercise your right” to vote, he said in a message published on Twitter at the same time.

The elections are the first since war broke out in neighboring Syria in 2011, sending over one million refugees to Lebanon, a small country with an estimated population of around 4.5 million. The war has divided the country, pitting parties supporting the Iran-sponsored Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria to aide President Bashar Assad against Saudi-aligned parties opposed to it.

But low turnout - between 30 and 40 percent in Beirut precincts according to the country’s National News Agency - betrayed widespread voter apathy for the main political currents governing the country and left open the possibility that outside candidates could win seats in Parliament.

“These leaders are destroying homes, not building them,” said Ahmad Khashouq, 43, a private security guard in Beirut. Khashouq, from the town of Zahle in the country’s Bekaa Valley, said he was not voting in the elections after feeling his vote was wasted in 2009, the last time elections were held.

More than 500 candidates are running for 128 seats in Lebanon’s National Assembly.

Fist fights broke out in and around polling stations around the country, as rival partisans accused each other and election officials of ballot stuffing and illegal campaigning. In the Choueifat district, a crowd inside a station accused the station supervisor of illegal voting practices and smashed a ballot box, spilling its contents across the floor. The army ordered the media to turn off their cameras.

In Zahle, the politician Mryiam Skaff blamed members of the right-wing Lebanese Forces party of beating up her supporters in polling stations.

The voting is unlikely to change the existing balance of power among the major political factions in Lebanon, but many hope new contenders from civil society groups can challenge the decades-old sectarian political system.

Sarah Brjawi, 33, said she was voting for Nouhad Yazbek, a woman candidate running on a coalition list of political independents and activists running in Beirut.

Brjawi, who was walking the streets of Beirut’s Ras el-Nabea neighborhood with her clown troupe before voting, said she was perplexed by voters who said they supported their satirical act, poking fun at the country’s endemic corruption and political stagnation, while saying they’d vote for establishment parties again.

“This country is really bipolar,” said Brjawi.The main race is between a coalition headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, part of a region-wide power struggle that is tearing apart the Middle East.

“This shows Lebanon’s democracy and the importance of democracy. This is a democratic wedding, and as we said from the start, congratulations to whoever wins tonight,” said Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk, who is running on Hariri’s list, after casting his ballot in Beirut.