After months of campaigning, twelve hours of voting and more than 24 hours of waiting, Lebanese Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk appeared before cameras on Monday night to officially announce the list of elected candidates, renewing a parliament that had been in office since 2009.

The first figure to analyse is turnout. Only 49.2 per cent of those entitled to vote went to the polls. A figure that is not only five percentage points lower than the previous elections, but is above all a cold shower across the board for all parties in the small Levantine country. A complicated electoral law, unconvincing or unclear programmes, disillusionment with Lebanon's eternal political class — which is so often passed down from father to son — all play a part in explaining the figure. If on the one hand low turnout is a damning verdict on the system, on the other, paradoxically — owing to the electoral law — it hits independent lists and civil society hardest; these had presented themselves as a genuine alternative in this election.

Despite the general defeat in terms of participation, the vote nonetheless leaves several points worth reflecting on. The Lebanese peculiarity of distributing parliamentary seats on a confessional basis means there can be no winner in the true sense of the word. The structure of the National Assembly — the parliament — and therefore indirectly of Lebanese democracy itself, is built on a system of agreement rather than majority rule. Today's results and the seats won are only one step in the discussions about the country's institutional and legislative future.

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Elections in Lebanon, the results

Within the framework of the 8 March alliance — an increasingly fragile division of the Lebanese parliament between those who supported Syria and those who opposed Syrian intervention in Lebanon — the Shia axis Hezbollah-Amal confirmed its strength in the south and in most of the constituencies where it has historically always performed well. One small note: in the Bekaa and in Jounieh, the two parties lost two potential seats to the Lebanese Forces and the Kataeb Phalangists. Hezbollah won a total of 14 seats in parliament, while Amal won 15 — three more in total compared to the 2009 round. To complete the picture, the Marada movement confirmed its three seats from 2009, as did the Free Patriotic Movement, the party founded by President Aoun and led by his son-in-law and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, which won the same 20 seats as last time — 28 when counting the Tashnag party. In addition, there are ten elected members who are independent but aligned with Hezbollah and Amal.

On the other side of the National Assembly, known as the 14 March alliance, the collapse of Prime Minister Saad Hariri's Future Movement was stark. Although the Sunni party held on in Tripoli and confirmed its dominance in the constituencies of west Beirut, it lost as many as eight seats, reaching 21 in parliament. The reasons for the collapse range from the fragmentation of the Sunni political landscape — four seats were taken from it by billionaire former Prime Minister Najib Mikati — to the Riyadh affair, when Hariri spent several days in Saudi Arabia in November 2017, widely believed to have been held against his will, resigning and accusing Hezbollah of plotting to kill him. But the real surprise of the elections is the Lebanese Forces, the right-wing nationalist movement led by Samir Geagea, which increased its presence in the National Assembly by six seats, rising from eight to 14. Finally, Walid Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party also gained two seats in parliament, reaching nine.

There are many points worth reflecting on

But beyond the numbers, the Lebanese elections were a test of the country's democratic resilience. The conduct of the electoral round was judged positively — albeit tainted by isolated instances of tension in the Bekaa and in the Chouf — by international observers, including Elena Valenciano, head of the EU mission. The post-election period, by contrast, saw difficult moments during the count. Nouhad Machnouk was keen to point out that the slowness was due to the new electoral system. The only note of protest, whose protagonist was writer and candidate Joumana Haddad, took place on Monday afternoon outside the Interior Ministry. After the celebrations of Sunday evening, when her election had seemed certain, by Monday morning the writer's name was nowhere to be found among the winners. Joumana Haddad called for a recount of the ballots to dispel any shadow over the nomination of Antoine Pano, who, like her, had stood on the minorities list.

Without Haddad, the independent civil society list consists of Paulette Yaghobian alone, a familiar face from Future Television, while the total number of women in parliament stands at just six. More than the two elected in the 2009 elections, but far from adequate representation. Despite the setbacks, the victory of the traditional parties and the surnames of those elected — often the same ones — there are nonetheless some interesting seeds to watch for the future as well. Civil society finally managed to stand in the elections with a shared programme, a sign of a Lebanon that has domestic policy priorities. The new electoral law, however complicated, had the merit of putting forward more heterogeneous lists, thereby shifting the focus from confessionalism to political ideas. Finally, the elections took place, despite the four-year delay; Lebanon managed to organise an electoral round that was held in relative calm.

What future for Lebanon?

The future lies in the hands of the new parliament and the ability of those elected to find compromises. There are domestic issues to address if the same underlying causes that produced a 49.2 per cent turnout are not to be allowed to fester. Among these causes, real problems stand out. Lebanon is a country that imposes a three-hour daily electricity blackout, whose waste management system creates numerous health problems, with youth unemployment touching 22.2 per cent and a national debt at 148 per cent of GDP. The new National Assembly faces a fundamental challenge: relaunching the country's economy, still mired in the aftermath of the 2010 collapse. One of the questions parliament will need to answer in order to generate consensus and reactivate recovery lies in the fight against corruption: Lebanon currently ranks 143rd among the countries least affected by this practice.

Externally, the small Levantine country's position remains pivotal to the region's dynamics. The new National Assembly will face the constant pressure of Israel to the south, the never-resolved Syrian refugee crisis, and the need to balance the many foreign forces — Iran and Saudi Arabia above all — that operate within Lebanon. All of this must happen without losing a sense of national direction, the absence of which would risk undermining the country's foundations and would have inevitable repercussions across the entire region, already under strain from the endless war in Syria and the tensions in the Persian Gulf.