Report: Registration Deadline Looms, Signs of 'Heated' Election Battle ahead

With the registration deadline looming at midnight on Monday, political parties and Parliament hopefuls have rushed over the weekend to announce their electoral lists in various Lebanese districts to begin a countdown for the May 6 parliamentary elections.

Various “mosaic” electoral lists will be “fiercely” competing in Lebanon's 15 electoral districts, where once-rival parties are joining unified lists in order to garner winnings in the polls, al-Joumhouria daily reported.

According to Lebanon's new electoral law approved in 2017, candidates are not allowed to run individually. They are supposed to be included in lists.

Lebanon will stage its May elections based on a new complex representational system that replaces a majoritarian 1960 winner-takes-all system.

Many of the lists that have taken shape so far, have shown no “homogeneity” among the components, said the daily.

Electoral war of words have repeatedly broken out between political rivals, the latest was Sunday between Prime Minister Saad Hariri and former Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi and former PM Najib Miqati.

The men traded tirades in connection with heated electoral battle in the northern city of Tripoli.

Various political parties, some having opposite political orientations, have agreed to be named on the same electoral lists in order to garner “definite” win in the upcoming legislative polls.

Based on the formed electoral lists and political statements made over the weekend, unnamed sources said political mobilization “is going to make the approaching elections a heated and unprecedented battle.”