Beirut -

Lebanon is officially preparing for the parliamentary elections, which will start in their first phase with the Lebanese expatriates on the sixth and eighth of this May, one week before their scheduled date inside Lebanon on May 15, 2022.

The attention of all the traditional political forces emanating from civil society is directed towards the expatriate elections, which will be held for the second time in Lebanon after the 2018 election cycle, due to the ability of their votes to influence the results of the elections, which was manifested in the political polarization between the various forces, as each seeks to attract the greatest possible of expatriates for his own good.

Information about expatriate voters

Today, Thursday, May 5, the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs inaugurated its operations room for managing and monitoring parliamentary elections abroad, in the presence of Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah Bou Habib. Both of them called on the expatriates to participate heavily in the elections.

The number of Lebanese expatriate voters registered abroad is 225,114, which is about three times higher than the number of those expatriates registered in the 2018 elections, when they reached about 92,000.

These registered voters are spread over 58 countries on six continents, but they constitute 25% of the total Lebanese residing abroad who are entitled to vote, and their numbers are estimated at 970,000, according to the International Information Center.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati inaugurates the operations room for the expatriate elections in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants (Al Jazeera)

The expatriate elections will start on May 6 in Arab and Gulf countries that adopt Friday as an official holiday, namely: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Kuwait, Syria, Oman, Egypt, Bahrain, Jordan, Iraq and Iran, with the exception of the UAE, which adopts Sunday as an official holiday, in which the Lebanese expatriates will vote with those deployed in Western countries in The eighth of May.

Europe recorded the largest number of Lebanese voters, followed by Asia and North America.

These expatriate voters go to the polling stations in which they are registered, and the same conditions apply to them for the elections at home, which are conducted in accordance with the proportional law.

Every expatriate, both abroad and inside, has the right to vote for one of the candidate lists in the electoral district in which he is registered (in his hometown), and to give the preferential vote to one of the candidates of the list that he has chosen exclusively and within his smaller constituency.

However, the preparations for the expatriate elections witnessed a heated political debate, reaching the level of confidence in Foreign Minister Abdullah Bouhabib in Parliament without a quorum for the session designated for this, against the backdrop of controversy over the distribution of polling stations in major countries, and the large distances between the places of residence of some expatriate voters and the polling stations that They were named out, as happened in Sydney.

Currently, all forces are dealing with the conditions of the expatriate elections as a fait accompli, amid observers' fears that they may later lead to the registration of appeals with their results or to question the transparency of the process.


Preparations and obstacles

About a week ago, the Lebanese Minister of Foreign Affairs clarified that the selection of polling stations abroad depends on the conditions of the host countries, and diplomatic and consular missions were informed to determine the centers according to the geographical distribution of expatriate voters, and that depositing the correct information when registering through the expatriate platform is the responsibility of the voter, not the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In the context, a diplomatic source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs talks to Al Jazeera Net about some of the logistical and material obstacles facing the expatriate elections, stressing that preparations are continuing in full swing, and they are almost ready, although not 100%.

The source gives examples of some logistical problems facing the ministry, such as the arrival of some ballot boxes to its external centers with some fractions that require replacing them with others, in addition to submitting requests for a large number of delegates that exceed the capacity of the designated centers to accommodate them, as well as some expatriate voters facing the problem of geographical distance about their polling stations.


The source states that the European Union Election Observation Mission raised a problem in the 2018 elections that many expatriates did not vote because their names were mentioned in centers far from their places of residence. Voters whose names appeared at polling stations far from them.

The source said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs faces individual cases only in this context, and is not a general case related to geographical obstacles that prevent expatriates from reaching their polling stations.

In parallel, the expatriate elections face many financial obstacles, some of which the ministry's source talks about.

After the Foreign Ministry asked the government to allocate a budget of 4.5 million dollars for the completion of the expatriate elections, it allocated only 3 million dollars to it, as a result of the deficit and poor monetary conditions, which is much less than the budget for the 2018 elections.

The material reality called for austerity in the expatriate elections, so the Ministry of Foreign Affairs used most of the free centers abroad, such as using mosques, churches, schools and free centers according to each country.

However, the elections face the problem of not diverting all funds allocated to foreign missions, due to banking hurdles.

To overcome this problem, "the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has allowed missions to use funds allocated to them from consulates' imports to cover election expenses until the funds are transferred."


Expatriates and fund security

It spreads in the countries of expatriation 205 centers compared to 598 electoral pens.

After the polls close on Friday and Sunday, the heads of the polling stations sort the envelopes according to the electoral district, and they are sealed with special boxes with red wax, then they are sent to Lebanon through the shipping company “DHL”, and they are kept in the safes of the Central Bank of Lebanon, until they are transferred to the registration committees on May 15 (( The date of the Lebanon elections) with the aim of counting them with all the votes.

The Executive Director of the Lebanese Association for the Promotion of Democratic Elections (LADE), Ali Selim, talks about the lack of complete transparency and clarity in dealing with the elections inside and outside.

Salim explains to Al Jazeera Net that the role of the Election Supervisory Board of the Ministry of Interior is not activated in monitoring the expatriate elections, and he mentions what happened in the 2018 elections, as "the ballot boxes remained in their centers in the countries where the elections were held on Friday, because DHL closes on Saturday, and it was not even transferred Sunday evening after the completion of all the expatriate elections.

The other problem, according to Selim, is that when the envelopes of the boxes arrive at the Banque du Liban, Article 120 of the electoral law stipulates that the sorting takes place in the High Registration Committee in Beirut, but what happened in 2018 was that they were not transferred to this committee, but rather were distributed to the registration committees. Circuits belonging to it, and this led to the loss of dozens of covers, and there is a fear of repeating the experiment.

In the 2018 elections, representatives of all parties were present at the polling stations, who witnessed the counting process, its minutes and the closing of the boxes, before handing them over to DHL.

The source of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs clarifies that the 2022 elections witnessed the introduction of a “GPS” mode in each box, which means that no fund can be lost, and upon its arrival at the airport, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will receive it, with a security escort towards the Banque du Liban, and this makes tampering with funds a difficult issue.

Political map of Parliament after the 2018 elections (Anatolia)

Polarization and expatriation campaigns

The Lebanese expatriate elections in 2022 are characterized by the large number of registered voters compared to 2018, but it reflects the growing wave of immigration in Lebanon after the October 17, 2019 movement and the economic collapse, according to Ali Selim.

He says that the expatriate voter "is often liberated with his choices compared to the voters residing at home, as he is subject to less pressure from the political forces."

Here, Tony Mikhael, a lawyer and legal advisor to the Lebanese Maharat Foundation, which is currently conducting studies on electoral behavior, talks about electoral campaigns by addressing the diaspora and attempts to influence them in the countries of diaspora.

Mikhael tells Al Jazeera Net that the actual battle is about attracting voters abroad, given the concern of all forces about the impact of their votes on the results.

Mikhael notes, through several analytical studies of the discourse, that all the forces involved in the elections, both traditional and the forces emanating from civil society bearing the slogan "change", adopted a discourse based on playing on feelings to attract voters more than a discourse based on a clear electoral program.

The Lebanese parties, because they have a little concern about the people residing in Lebanon, will resort to supporting the expatriates in the elections, and in


my opinion, every expatriate contributes to the survival of the thieves and the corrupt, and those who have left us for what we have left them, will contribute to killing the Lebanese in Lebanon more and more,


if the expatriate is not able to live a month in Lebanon, how can the resident bear to live forever.

— hicham Haydar (@hichamHaydar3) May 3, 2022

On the one hand, the traditional forces seek to transform the electoral process into a battle for political, sectarian, regional and ideological existence, and on the other hand, most of the "change" forces relied on inviting voters abroad and at home to vote against the ruling parties that "displaced and impoverished them".

Tony Mikhael points out that the traditional parties in the 2018 elections held a high percentage of the control of the electoral battle abroad, while in the 2022 elections, new forces entered the line of addressing the expatriates.

For example, some change forces in some circles, particularly those with a Christian majority, are counting on the votes of expatriates to support them by registering violations against the regulations of the traditional party forces.

Salim and Mikhael believe that there is a need after May 15 to assess the impact of expatriate votes on the election results, determine the winners and losers, and the extent of the transparency of the process by transferring funds and counting votes, especially since the circumstances of the 2022 elections are exceptional and fateful, as their results will draw the balance of power in the next parliament.