Political parties in Lebanon

Lebanon has numerous political parties, usually with sectarian character. Since 2005, and after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, the political scene has become very polarized, with most major political parties and movements becoming part of one of two big rival alliances, the March 8 Alliance and the March 14 Alliance. Since the election of General Michel Aoun as President in 2016 and the formation of a new Government with Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the 14th March movement has lost momentum and the political scene has evolved into Governing Parties under the control of Hezbollah with the Tayyar, the Lebanese Forces, Amal and the Hariri camp and Opposition Forces consisting of traditional parties such as the Kataeb, the National Liberal Party, and Achraf Rifi’s movement, in addition to new non-sectarian political parties such as Sabaa and the Party of Lebanon and civil society movements who are considered "independent" (a third force) loosely allied as a group to change Lebanon. There are also some other independent groups that are informally organised or linked to environmental activism and anti-corruption protest movements.

Lebanon’s unique experiment of a Sectarian Democracy trying to blend democratic principles and religious allocation of roles and functions together with 18 religious laws being applied to citizens’ personal status, in contradiction with the fundamental principles of democracy, the sovereignty of the people and equality of rights between the citizens has led to the sectarian division of the Lebanese people by law, to politically weak institutions, a divided nation and the chain of historical events such as the 1958 and 1975 civil wars, the Palestinian military activities against Israel from the Lebanese territory, the occupation by Syrian Forces, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the actual presence of weapons in the hands of Hezbollah’s militia and outside the control of the Lebanese Government.

However after the 2018 parliamentary elections, the political powers of Lebanon changed dramatically, with the Free Patriotic Movement leading in the number of seats in the Parliament and the Future Movement losing almost half its seats. The Lebanese Forces almost doubled their seats in the Parliament.

Although almost every party is strongly dominated by a particular faith community, it should be noted that most nonetheless maintain that they are secular.

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