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February 25, 2021 | 54 Pages | English | Georgia Dagher
The 2018 Lebanese Parliamentary Elections: What Do the Numbers Say? Mount Lebanon 2 Electoral District: Metn

In the 2018 Lebanese parliamentary elections, Metn saw a highly competitive race, although there was no significant change in representation, with most parties and candidates retaining their seats. The winners heavily relied on their sectarian communities. While the Free Patriotic Movement winners received more widespread support across sects, the Kataeb winners relied on the Maronite vote, Michel Murr relied on the Greek Orthodox vote, the Tashnag winner on the Armenian Orthodox vote, and the Lebanese Forces on the Maronite and Greek Catholic vote. Moreover, the majority of voters in Metn gave their preferential vote to a candidate from their own sectarian group—although the sectarian bias in the district was much lower than that in most other districts. It however significantly varied across confessional groups, and rather than voting for candidates of their same denomination, Maronite, Greek Orthodox, and Greek Catholic voters tended to vote for each other, and barely gave any votes for Armenian Orthodox candidates. Some differing patterns in voting behavior were observed across genders. First, women voters were significantly more likely to vote for women candidates, and nearly all of these candidates received a higher share of votes from women voters. Second, women were more likely to vote for Kulluna Watani and nearly all of the antiestablishment list’s candidates. In particular, the two women candidates in the list received almost twice as many votes from women voters. Apart from these results, there were some signs of irregularities in the results, pointing toward Kataeb and Michel Murr. First, Kataeb received better results in smaller polling stations and those that recorded much higher turnouts—which suggests voter rigging. Second, Michel Murr’s list also performed better in polling stations that recorded very high turnouts, and its number of votes were distributed in an irregular pattern—which suggests vote rigging.