Lebanon is once again on the verge of postponing its municipal elections through a parliamentary session on April 25. This would represent the third delay in as many years, and follows a troubling pattern reminiscent of previous tumultuous periods in Lebanese history. The last occurrence of repeatedly deferred municipal elections dates back to the 1960s, when scheduled elections in 1967 did not take place for over three decades, until they were resumed in 1998.
The decision to put off municipal elections is hardly surprising. The political class harbors a general aversion to them, because the politicians’ control over municipal dynamics is often more tentative than over national politics. With each postponement comes a further erosion of public trust and a deepening sense of disillusionment with the political establishment and the political system.
Municipal councils in Lebanon are responsible for overseeing various tasks within designated geographical areas. These include maintaining roads, managing public facilities such as schools and hospitals, organizing cultural venues such as museums and libraries, providing waste collection services, and ensuring public welfare. Members of municipal councils are elected directly by popular vote for a term of six years, and there are no confessional quotas in these councils, unlike parliamentary elections. Lebanon currently has 1,059 municipalities, representing cities, towns, or groups of small villages combined into districts. Today, over 100 municipal councils are defunct due to resignations, death, or other reasons, and municipal affairs are run by the district administrator (qaimmaqam) or the governor (muhafiz).
The municipal system in Lebanon invariably serves as a foundation for discussions by reformers about administrative decentralization, economic development, and political participation. During the early 1990s, as reconstruction efforts began after the civil war, the quest to reestablish political legitimacy in the country led to a push to revive local governance structures. However, the story of Lebanese municipal councils began almost a century and a half earlier than that.
Lebanon’s first municipalities were established under Ottoman rule to extend governance in the wake of the turmoil of the 1840s. These councils primarily resolved disputes and communicated with Ottoman officials. Later, in the 20th century, French Mandate and post-independence governments expanded the system, integrating local elites into the state. However, after 1963, elections faced repeated delays because of regional tensions, a hiatus prolonged by the civil war in 1975–1990, while the tense atmosphere in the region has resumed today.
Nevertheless, even amid the chaos of the first phase of the civil war (1975–1977), Lebanese municipal politics, even without elections, persisted as a battleground for internal power struggles. Passage of the 1977 Law of Municipalities laid the legal groundwork for the current municipal system, yet the realities of war prevented its full implementation. It wasn’t until after the war ended that there was renewed attention to municipal reform and elections, albeit in a vastly different context.
The promise of decentralization and local empowerment remained elusive, despite their being mentioned in the Taif Agreement of 1989, which serves as the basis of Lebanon’s postwar Second Republic. While the central government was regaining power, municipalities found themselves confronting existential challenges. As the 1990s progressed, campaigns led by civil society, such as “Baladi, Baldati, Baladiyati,” pushed for a country-wide revival of municipal elections, eventually leading to their resumption in 1998, despite the central government viewing them as a nuisance. Elections for more than 100 towns and villages in south Lebanon, which was still under Israeli occupation that year, were not held until 2001. Postwar parliamentary elections had already been held twice by 1998, in 1992 and 1996. Municipal elections were again held in 2004, 2010, and 2016.
After 2009, however, Lebanon postponed its parliamentary and presidential elections several times, but strangely enough not its municipal elections. Indeed, the last municipal elections to be held, in 2016, took place during a period when parliamentary elections had not been held for seven years. These elections were viewed by anti-establishment groups as an opportunity for democratic renewal and change. Even amid domestic political instability and the raging Syrian war, in which Hezbollah participated, the elections occurred at a moment when popular discontent with the ruling parties was gaining momentum. This had reached a climax in 2015, when a crisis manufactured by members of the political class to increase their profits from trash collection left much of Lebanon awash in garbage for weeks on end, provoking protests and outrage.
As the political establishment faced rising popular anger, municipal elections became a test case in which once polar-opposite establishment parties banded together, if only to guarantee their political survival. The demand for effective local governance was arguably at its height, and this mood was most famously expressed through the high turnout in favor of the Beirut Madinati list in Beirut. The list was made up mainly of civil society figures, who portrayed themselves as a counterpoint to the corrupt candidates of Lebanon’s establishment parties.
Fast forward to the present. Lebanon finds itself mired in economic turmoil and political paralysis. The postponement of the 2022 municipal elections, purportedly to prioritize parliamentary elections, and then again in 2023, due to alleged funding constraints, reflects a government not overly concerned with maintaining what remains of its institutions. The third delay this year serves as a symbol of how politics are conducted in the country: state institutions and the rule of law are, at best, secondary concerns for a government allied with Hezbollah. It also comes at a time when cross-border conflict between Hezbollah and Israel has led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of Lebanese from the south, while the country is also hosting over 1 million Syrian refugees, according to the Lebanese government.
In response to the war on the border, some lawmakers have suggested holding municipal elections in governorates unaffected by the conflict. Following standard protocol, the interior minister even announced a date for elections in the governorates of Mount Lebanon, followed by the North and Akkar, and Beirut and Baalbek-Hermel. But holding elections in some governorates and not others, thereby presenting a model of two Lebanons, one at war and another holding elections, is not something Hezbollah is likely to accept.
Lebanon’s collapsed economy does not justify postponement either. Dealing with soaring poverty around the country can be served with renewed and more empowered local governance. Moreover, the storm of challenges Lebanon faces fuels ongoing debates about establishing a new federal system, the purpose of which would be to reduce the power of the corrupt central government. Some of the radical proposals on the table would see each municipality assigned, based on the religious affiliation of its majority, to one of four or more confessional cantons forming a new federal republic of Lebanon. Those favoring less radical proposals, for example introducing administrative decentralization under the current system, also view the empowerment of municipalities as a crucial step away from the venality of the central authorities in the state.
Ultimately, the repeated postponement of municipal elections emphasizes a deeper crisis of governance and democracy in Lebanon. While the municipal system holds promise as a locus of local empowerment and participatory democracy, its potential remains unrealized, if not at the moment intentionally unsatisfied. The general path forward in Lebanon demands a concerted effort to establish law and order while addressing political inclusivity, combatting corruption, rebuilding the economy, and reducing external interference in domestic affairs. It is a herculean task, but anything short of meaningful change in the country’s political landscape will entrench Lebanon further in instability and decline. Postponing the municipal elections helps to ensure that such an outcome is becoming more likely.
