Hezbollah’s bloc lost its parliamentary majority, and the firmly anti-Hezbollah, anti-Syrian Lebanese Forces party will become the largest Christian group in parliament. An impressive showing by several independent reform candidates also indicates a public desire to do away with the corrupt leaders who have run the country into the ground.
But any expectations that the country has managed to turn itself around, or that the Hezbollah threat to Israel is going to be reduced, is “some wishful thinking,” said Jacques Neriah, Middle East analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
“The final picture of what we see today is the quagmire of Lebanon,” Neriah said. “There is no possibility of reform. There is no possibility of change in the political system. We are stuck in paralysis and stagnation.”
The election comes after years of turmoil in Lebanon, which has in recent years defaulted on its debt and seen the Lebanese pound lose 95 percent of its value. READ MORE
