There are many lessons to be drawn from the recent municipal elections held in Lebanon. While it's true that municipal contests in villages and small towns are often shaped by family ties and local dynamics and thus cannot be taken as clear indicators of parliamentary elections, the reality in major cities cannot be ignored – cities that witnessed overtly political electoral battles, from Tripoli to Jounieh, Jdeideh, Beirut, all the way to Saida and Tyre.
But perhaps the most symbolic and telling outcome, with regard to the upcoming parliamentary elections, is the drastic downsizing of the so-called “Change MPs.” These MPs reached Parliament in the last elections with 13 seats, riding a wave of enthusiasm both in Lebanon and abroad. Since then, they have failed to make any notable breakthrough. Moreover, some of them couldn’t even run campaigns in their own hometowns without the backing of traditional political parties.
The Municipal Elections: A Reality Check for Change MPs
From Zgharta to the Shouf and all the way to Beirut, the change movement’s MPs proved unable to mobilize even modest voter support. In Beirut, for example, their influence has shrunk from five parliamentary seats to an almost marginal role in shaping public opinion.
To illustrate: in Beirut’s recent municipal elections, the “Beirut Madinati” list secured around 8,000 votes, divided between 1,500 in Beirut I and 6,000 in Beirut II. In practical terms, this amounts to barely half of the electoral threshold in Beirut II (where they had previously won three seats) and less than a quarter of a threshold in Beirut I (where they had secured two seats).
While Beirut’s political dynamics remain heavily shaped by sectarian parity and broad party coalitions, a comparison with the previous municipal elections is nonetheless revealing. Back in 2016, the Beirut Madinati coalition – then led by current MP Ibrahim Mneimneh – garnered a far larger share of the vote. This year, however, support for that movement fell to roughly a quarter of its former level.
From Promise to Collapse: The Fall of the Change Movement
Faced with this electoral reality, Change MPs were forced to admit defeat. They expressed sadness and frustration, accusing their opponents of using financial resources, media influence and sectarian machinery against them – as if these forces hadn’t always been part of Lebanon’s political landscape.
But the truth they refuse to acknowledge is this: support for the change movement has plummeted to record lows – even before considering their catastrophic results in the South, where the Madinati-style lists barely reached 1% of the vote in areas like Nabatieh.
There are many reasons behind this collapse, and contrary to the Change MPs’ narrative, they have little to do with money, media or sectarianism. The root cause lies in their own underwhelming performance over the past three years in Parliament. Their priorities have ranged from symbolic gestures like focusing on a monk seal cave, to performative politics, such as sleeping in tents at Parliament while awaiting the election of a president. Internal divisions further weakened their position. Some members even drifted toward the Moumanaa Axis, with some Change MPs becoming more hardline in defending Hezbollah than Hezbollah’s own representatives.
For many voters who had placed their hopes in change, what they witnessed was not transformation, but disappointment: empty slogans, petitions and political immaturity. No real legislative action, no meaningful committee work, and certainly no impactful laws passed.
The recent municipal election results have exhausted whatever credibility remained of the so-called Change Forces. These results didn’t just defeat them – they exposed them. They have now shrunk back to their actual size, after having grown artificially large amid national crises and political vacuum.
In their rise, they demonized the entire state, without distinguishing between what was worth saving and what needed reform. They vilified all banks, with no nuance between the guilty and the innocent. They rejected all political opponents, failing to separate genuine reformers from the corrupt.
Now, these forces have turned on themselves, caught in a spiral of disillusionment and decline. Escaping their current predicament no longer seems possible.
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