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February 19, 2021 | 57 Pages | English | Georgia Dagher
The 2018 Lebanese Parliamentary Elections: What Do the Numbers Say? North 1 Electoral District: Akkar

Lebanese citizens were finally given the opportunity to renew their political representation in 2018—nine years after the previous parliamentary elections. Akkar remained one of the Future Movement’s strongholds, and owed its success to the Sunni community, which also turned out to vote in much higher numbers than other groups. The two other main winning parties, the Lebanese Forces and Free Patriotic Movement, relied on the Christian groups, while no party showed to represent Alawite voters, who in turn were the least likely to vote. Voters in Akkar showed preferences for their coconfessional candidates, and even voters who voted for independent candidates tended to cast their preferential vote for a co-sectarian one. Geographical variations in sectarian preferences were still observed: More confessionally fragmented areas saw a lower presence of sectarian preferences. Apart from voters’ preferences, there were some signs of voter rigging on the part of the Future Movement. Two patterns, which tend to occur in irregular elections, were observed in the votes for the party: It generally performed better in polling stations with smaller numbers of registered voters, and in stations that recorded significantly high turnout rates.