BEIRUT, May 5, 2018 (News Wires) — Polling stations employees in Lebanon have begun distributing thousands of ballot boxes ahead of the country's first parliamentary elections in nine years. The distribution began Saturday, a day before more than 3.6 million registered Lebanese voters are set to cast their ballots. The vote, the first for a parliament since 2009, is also the first since Lebanon adopted a new election law last year. The law changed the previous winner-takes-all system to a complicated sectarian-based proportional representation which awards the number of seats by the share of vote received. There are more than 500 candidates running in 15 districts around the country for the 128-seat parliament. All eyes are on whether the voting Sunday and the turnout can loosen the grip of an established political class on the country's affairs. The Iran-backed Hizbollah movement and its allies could stand to dominate parliament and reinforce their clout in Lebanon, a small country clamped between war-torn Syria and Israel. A new voting system has raised some hope for an unprecedented civil society list to make a small dent in the decades-old monopoly of political dynasties but disillusionment is rife in the electorate. The triumvirate heading the state is unlikely to change, with parliament speaker Nabih Berri almost certain to keep the post he has held since 1992 and Prime Minister Saad Hariri also set to stay put. Hizbollah is allied both to Berri and Aoun and is expected to chip at the camp led by Hariri's movement. "Hizbollah and its allies will be the first beneficiaries" of the new electoral law, said pollster Kamal Feghali. A clear win for Hizbollah, which is active in several conflicts in the region, could further fray the nerves of Israel and Washington. Hizbollah is funded and armed by Iran while Hariri has historically been supported by Saudi Arabia. But both have appeared ready to continue sharing power and neutralise growing tension between their rival sponsors. "These three forces will directly or indirectly be at the helm" after the vote, said Sami Atallah, director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies. A fifth of this year's 3.7 million-strong electorate was too young to vote in the last legislative polls in 2009. But the widespread perception that self-serving, hereditary and corrupt traditional parties have long sewn up a deal to preserve the status quo could keep many voters away on Sunday. "What is there to be interested in? It's the same names, the same faces, the same joke," said Joumana, a 51-year-old secretary at a clinic in Beirut. "My son and my daughter are doing their university studies in Europe. That is what's giving them a future, not the Lebanese state." Members of Lebanon's vast diaspora voted abroad for the first time this year, but those who were able to register in time were in small enough numbers that they were not expected to have a major impact on the results.
