Talk:2018 Lebanese general election

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Working on the article[edit]

Some points to follow:

  • 1) In recent expansion a list of the candidate lists was added for each of the 15 constituencies. It is a level of detail that is perhaps not needed for this article in the long run, much of the material could eventually be moved to sub-articles on the election in a specific region, but it was a necessary exercise to map out the different alliances in the different districts.
  • 2) As a next stage, I'd like to try to map the candidates by party affiliation. This is going to be more difficult, as many have rather ambigous party affiliation, virtually every list includes independents in one way or another.
  • 3) Mapping the candidates, lists and alliances is a preparatory work for being able to present the results. But, at same time there is virtually nothing on the election campaigns, the debates, polemics and issues. Expansion on such topics would be much needed.
  • 4) How do we present the results? With the mixed lists, it is very difficult to summarize vote percentages by party. One option would be to count just the preference votes as party votes, but not sure how many voters would use the preference vote? (Probably most voters will use this option) Another option would be to simply treat each of the 77 lists as a party in a table, where lists failing to get MPs election would be in a collapsable section of the list. Another option would be to solely summarize number of MPs elected by party, and have the result with votes and % reported separately for each of the 15 electoral districts.
  • Thoughts? Comments? --Soman (talk) 07:08, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Also, it would be great is someone would look a bit at translation of list names. --Soman (talk) 07:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Party affiliation[edit]

At this point, 42.4% of the candidates have been ascribed a party identity, to be able to eventually present results by party. see the following provisional table

Party BR1 BR2 BK1 BK2 BK3 ML1 ML2 ML3 ML4 NO1 NO2 NO3 SO1 SO2 SO3 Total
Future Movement 10 2 3 2 2 6 11 2 38
Free Patriotic Movement 2 1 1 2 2 3 3 5 2 1 3 3 28
Ashraf Rifi lists 8 7 11 26
Lebanese Forces 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 5 1 1 17
Amal Movement 1 1 1 1 5 5 14
Hezbollah 1 1 4 1 1 2 3 13
Kataeb Party 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 3 1 13
Syrian Social Nationalist Party 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7
Lebanese Communist Party 1 1 1 4 7
Popular Bloc 7 7
Progressive Socialist Party 1 1 4 6
Marada Movement 1 1 4 6
Lebanese Democratic Party 1 3 1 5
National Liberal Party 1 1 3 5
Li-baladi 5 5
al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya 2 1 1 1 5
Democratic Gathering 4 4
Tashnaq 3 1 4
Saaba Party 1 2 1 4
Al-Ahbash 1 1 1 3
Ramgavar 2 1 3
Citizens in the State 0 1 2 3
SSNP Intifada (Haidar faction) 1 1 2
People's Movement 2 2
Green Party of Lebanon 1 1 2
Arab Unification Party 2 2
Independence Movement 2 2
Solidarity Party 1 1
Islamic Action Front 1 1
Hunchak 1 1
Sah 1 1
You Stink 1 1
Mourabitoun 1 1
Toilers League 1 1
Akkari People's Gathering 1 1
Resistance Movement 1 1
Democratic Left Movement 1 1
Popular Nasserite Organization 1 1
March 11 1 1
Baath 1 1
Lebanese Option Party 1 1
Unclassified on "We are All National" lists 0 4 5 3 3 10 9 34
Other Unclassified 15 52 13 11 33 25 17 8 24 15 39 9 7 5 29 302
Total 34 81 32 16 47 38 35 23 63 36 65 37 17 13 46 583

Some comments:

  • Most candidates are unclassified, and likely a majority will stay like that. Many of the minor lists only include non-partisans. However, there are difficulties to decide when someone is an independent or not. Sources call Jamil Al Sayyed a Hezbollah candidate, but Hezbollah media (Al-Manar etc.) insists that he is independent and is thus listed as such.
  • Clearly more work is still needed, but at this stage all major forces are more or less mapped.
  • Done with Amal, Hezbollah, SSNP, LDP, Mourabitoun, Toilers League, Tashnaq, Hunchak, etc...
  • I think Future is done, but not sure if they may have some candidate in South III?
  • Not sure if LCP may have some candidates in Bekaa III?
  • I haven't gotten around to classify most of the We Are all National candidates by party identity. I would have liked to list all "We Are all National" lists as a party, but complicated by the fact that they include LCP and Green Party candidates (who also field other candidates)
  • I think we can see the 3 Rifi lists as a party of their own.
  • Not sure if there could be 1-2 more Jamaa Islamiyya candidates out there.
  • Not sure about number of candidates of some of the more obscure parties (People's Movement, Union Party, Baath, Vanguard, etc..). It seems to me that Fayez Shukr is not an official Baath candidate.
  • Not sure about Rafik Bazerji (Beirut I, Minorities) and Ghassan Moghbab (Chouf, Greek Orthodox) some source name them as NLP, but NLP issued a statement denying those lists.
  • What about Najib Mikati? Any party identity for his list?
  • No other Armenian parties except Tashnaq, Hunchak or Ramgavar?

Additions to article (with references) and comments here much appreciated. --Soman (talk) 11:57, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Presenting results[edit]

Three models: Lists, Parties and Candidates.

Lists[edit]

List District Votes % Seats MPs elected Political affiliation
List A Beirut I 10,000 10% 1 Name (Sect) Parties...
List B Beirut II 20,000 8% 2 Name (Sect), Name (Sect) Party B and independents

Parties[edit]

Party No. of candidates Votes % Seats

Candidates[edit]

Name District Sect Party List Preferential Votes % (in district) % (of sect in district) % (of list votes) Elected?

--Soman (talk) 16:13, 8 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Tentative template for list-wise results:

--Soman (talk) 21:53, 3 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hezbollah and Amal take Southern District[edit]

According to the report on Al-Manar TV, Hezbollah and Amal took the victory on the Southern Districts.

Sweeping Victory for Hezbollah, Amal in Lebanon’s Southern Districts

108.162.179.236 (talk) 00:54, 7 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Publishing results[edit]

We now have the official results, i.e. names of 128 elected MPs. Online various summaries of tallies by party are circulating. The problem is that the ballots have no party identity, only list names. Many lists includes various political parties, and parties that were enemies in some districts were allies in other. In order to establish a count by party, references for the individual candidates are needed, as is shown in the article.

Clearly, this way of counting differs with many media outlets. Many media list the number of Hezbollah parliamentarians as 13, presumably including Jamil Sayyed, but Hezbollah media insisted to see him as an independent. Likewise, there are MPs to whom no clear party identity has been attached, but that are presumably going to be part of the FPM parliamentary bloc. Gebran Bassil claims the FPM bloc will have 29+ members, but in my count the number of party candidates would be 18. Etc, etc.

Comparisons with 2009 are even more complex, as the counts in the 2009 article are quite unclear. --Soman (talk) 18:00, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think a direct comparison with the 2009 results would be possible, but there shouldn't be an effort to take into account allied independents. I think the best way of handling it would be to have a written paragraph describing the relative positions of the parties and blocs, which can acknowledge some of the difficulties in putting precise numbers on the shifts. Gabrielthursday (talk) 22:31, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Some clean-up needed in Lebanese general election, 2009. --Soman (talk) 22:38, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Party identity, again[edit]

A number of edits have been made changing the party-wise seat count. I had used the Annahar article, other users have referred to article in OLJ. Basically, there are a few differences:

  • OLJ lists Khazen as a separate bloc (which seems to pan out)
  • Annahar lists Henri Chadid as pro-Future, OLJ as pro-LF
  • Annahar lists Ibrahim Azar as pro-Hezbollah, OLJ as Amal. Prior to the vote, I found sources discussing Azar as supported by both Amal and Hezbollah, but I had included him in the 'pro-Hezbollah independents' line.
  • OLJ lists Jihad Samad as 'Karami bloc', whereas Annahar has him as pro-Hezbollah. The latter is better, as the list Karami fielded was an alliance with Samad (as in Samad not being part of same bloc as Karami).
  • OLJ has Eddie Demarajian as Independent, Annahar has him as pro-Hezbollah independent.

--Soman (talk) 23:10, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Why do we have "PM before" and "Elected Prime Minister"? Shouldn't it be "Speaker before" and "Elected Speaker"?[edit]

I know that it's always Nabih Berry who becomes speaker, but it doesn't make sense to put the Prime Minister before and after, since a) he's not elected, b) he's independently appointed by the President without needing confidence from parliament, and c) the Prime Minister can be dismissed by the President at any time. So there is no real correlation between the Prime Minister before and after the elections. Rik Spoutnik (talk) 18:46, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the infobox is not really adapted to Lebanon. The president too is elected the parliament... Perhaps all three key positions could be mentioned, but not in the shape of before/after. --Soman (talk) 12:26, 12 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. The only true "before" and "after" is the speaker, but the other two could also be mentioned. We could also mention the Vice-Speaker, who is the Greek Orthodox representative. Rik Spoutnik (talk) 18:46, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Greek Catholic vs. Melkite Catholic[edit]

I note that the term "Greek Catholic" has been changed to "Melkite Catholic". The key point here is that the term "Greek Catholic" corresponds to term used by election authorities, and should be used instead. Likewise, the term used for Maronites is simply Maronites, not "Maronite Catholic". --Soman (talk) 06:57, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I second that. Melkite is weird and on my relative's official government issued ID card (who is Catholic), it says "Greek Catholic". Mine just says "Maronite", not "Maronite Catholic", so I think that's right. Rik Spoutnik (talk) 18:44, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Henri Chedid's party identity...[edit]

Again, there are a number of unexplained reverts reducing "pro-Future independent" to 0 and increasing 1 to LF, which appears to be about Henri Chedid. It should be noted that Chedid (in the past close to March 8...) joined the "Future for West Bekaa" list as Future chose Chedid over a pro-LF candidate, marking a break in the negotiations for joint list between Future and LF. ("D’abord, le courant du Futur a écarté le nom d’Élie Lahoud, proposé par les FL pour le siège maronite, au profit de l’homme d’affaires Henri Chedid, coupant court à la tentative des FL de rejoindre la liste du Futur – quand bien même le PSP soutenait activement leur inclusion sur cette liste." [1]) Based on this, it seems reasonable to term Chedid as "pro-Future independent" when presenting the election result. (However, it is well possible that Chedid may chose another parliamentary bloc to join, but that does not change the election result presentation. Generally we should present candidates per partisan at the eve of the vote, discarding the later moves) --Soman (talk) 10:50, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comparison 2009-2018[edit]

Quite a few edits deal with the infobox and results tally, with different ways to count increase/decrease from 2009. The 2009 article does not include a result tally (instead a tally of seats in 2011...), comparing with Members of the 2009–17 Lebanese Parliament, we get more or less this outcome:

Party 2009 seats 2018 seats Diff
Future 26 19 -7
PSP 11 9 -2
LF 8 13 5
Ind. 14/Pro-Future Ind. 9 1 -8
Kataeb 5 3 -2
Hunchak 2 0 -2
Safadi 2 0 -2
DLM 1 0 -1
JI 1 0 -1
NLP 1 0 -1
Ramgavar 1 0 -1
Pro-LF Ind. 0 2 2
Total Anti-Hezbollah 67 47 -20
FPM 19 18 -1
LDP 2 1 -1
Tashnaq 2 3 1
LPM 0 1 1
IM 0 1 1
Pro-FPM ind 0 5 5
Total FPM+ 23 29 6
Amal 13 16 3
Hezbollah 11 12 1
Baath 2 0 -2
SSNP 2 3 1
IAF 1 0 -1
Solidarity Party 1 0 -1
Pro-Hezbollah 2 5 3
Ahbash 0 1 1
Dignity 0 1 1
Union 0 1 1
PNO 0 1 1
Total Hezbollah-Amal+ 32 40 8
Marada 3 3 0
Azm 2 4 2
Murr 1 1 0
NDP 0 1 1
Saaba 0 1 1
Khazen 0 2 2
Total Others' 6 12 6

If we are to count a wider amount of seats in the infobox, then we need to agree on a few points: 1) How to count the various 14 March Independents from 2009? Should they be compared with Future, LF or both? Some of the 14 March independents could be equally considered as LF allies. 2) Should Ibrahim Azar etc. be considered as Amal independent, Hezbollah independents or should we create a line for Amal/Hezbollah independents? The latter would seem more reasonable, but then how to calculate increase of seats between Hezbollah and Amal in the infobox?? --Soman (talk) 13:29, 13 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]


I think the infobox should reflect a party and its pro-party independents. It makes no sense to just have the party cardholders while the bloc may in reality be bigger. And to my knowledge, the 2009 elections showed Future's bloc, not the party cardholders. Regarding non-affiliated independents, there should probably be a box for "pro March-14 ind" and "pro March-8 ind". Rik Spoutnik (talk) 18:50, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's not that simple, since independents have warying degrees of afinity to the main party of the bloc. And the blocs are largely post-electoral arrangements, and doesn't necessarily match election results. One way around this would be to use bloc rather than party in the infobox. But for the results (with votes), it's not really possible to attach independents to a party since some have links to multiple parties. --Soman (talk) 20:20, 15 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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Results don't add up[edit]

@Soman: The results tables do not add up. In the 'by party' one, there is a total of 1,730,582 votes for parties, but the stated total is 1,759,068. Similarly, the valid, blank and no preference votes add up to 1,818,294, but the given total is 1,822,294. I've no idea how you calculated the percentages, as they add up to 106%.

Similarly in the 'by list' table, the total votes for lists (and blank votes) is 1,923,294 but the given total is 1,822,294. Are you able to recheck your calculations to get it to add up? Cheers, Number 57 13:51, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Number 57:. I've been offline for a few days, and it might take a while before I'm able to review the numbers fully, but I'll try to have a look at it. At a glance I believe the error is caused by a lot of drive-by edits from various editors changing votes and percentages in an arbitrary fashion over the past 2 years. Perhaps the best would be to create an edit-protected template for the result list, based on a broader consensus on how to interpret the result? The whole question of party identity here is very ambiguous since no candidate is officially registered as a party candidate, different sources may describe the same individual as an 'independent', 'March 8 independent', 'Amal independent', 'pro-Hizbollah independent' or 'March 8 candidate'... --Soman (talk) 14:05, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Source for Table on Voter Demographics[edit]

Greetings, Is there any other source on the table on voter demographics, like an English or French language pdf? --Tomislav Addai (talk) 10:49, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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