Lebanon will begin its municipal elections on May 2, kicking off a four-stage process that will see voting on May 2, 9, 23, and 30 in the governorates of Mount Lebanon and Beirut, the Bekaa, the south, and the north respectively. The government mandated that municipal council elections be held every six years in 1998, following a hiatus that lasted some 35 years. Since the end of the civil war in 1990 and the Taif Accord that stipulated constitutional reforms, Lebanon has held five parliamentary elections and two rounds of local elections, the latter most recently in May 2004. The structural reforms—particularly those pertaining to electoral reform and administrative decentralization—written into the Accord, however, have never been implemented. The issue of reform has been raised before and after each of the elections held since 1990 without ever being translated into concrete measures, and the same is true this time around.
Lebanese Municipal Elections On Time, But Reform Delayed
Electoral reforms take a back seat while family and confessional politics continue to dominate in Lebanon.
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