On May 6, Hezbollah and its political allies won more than half the seats in Lebanon’s first parliamentary elections in nine years. While the group\u2019s own tally did not change much, gains by the Amal Party, Free Patriotic Movement, and other allies mean that Hezbollah will play a bigger role in the next government. Leading a coalition that holds a simple majority in parliament will boost the group politically and strengthen its chances of legitimizing its power without any considerable challenge.<\/p>\n
When Bashar al-Assad withdrew his troops from Lebanon in 2005, several prominent players in the Syrian-dominated political and security establishment left Lebanese political life. Yet Hezbollah\u2019s electoral momentum has given them an opportunity to return to the stage.These people will undoubtedly increase their connections with the Assad regime to further empower Hezbollah, especially given Iran\u2019s growing role in Syria and continual reliance on the group as its top proxy. They will also try to bring Lebanon\u2019s state institutions closer to Syria\u2019s on key issues such as refugees and security.<\/p>\n
Although it did not get the two-thirds majority needed to refashion constitutional pillars such as sectarian power-sharing, the simple majority will allow Hezbollah to make other important decisions on security appointments and government formation. The elections will also allow for Lebanon to grow closer to Iran, something that will surely irritate the United States and other Saudi allies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On May 6, Hezbollah and its political allies won more than half the seats in Lebanon’s first parliamentary elections in nine years. While the group\u2019s own tally did not change much, gains by the Amal Party, Free Patriotic Movement, and other allies mean that Hezbollah will play a bigger role in the next government. Leading a coalition that holds a… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[139,129,125],"class_list":["post-1699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis","tag-elections","tag-hezbollah","tag-lebanon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1699"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1702,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699\/revisions\/1702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/middleeastandnorthafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}