What’s at Stake in Lebanon’s 2025 Municipal Elections

Lebanon is gearing up for its first municipal elections since 2016, scheduled to begin on May 4, 2025, after multiple postponements​. The elections will be held over successive Sundays throughout the month, beginning with Mount Lebanon (May 4), and followed by the North and Akkar (May 11) and then Beirut, Beqaa and Baalbek-Hermel (May 18). The governorates of the South and Nabatieh will hold elections last, on May 25—which symbolically coincides with the public holiday, ‘Resistance and Liberation Day’, this year marking the 25th anniversary of Israeli’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon. These long-overdue local polls come at a moment of acute national turmoil—amidst the ongoing economic crisis, the aftershocks of a recent war with Israel, and the instalment of a new government—all of which heighten the stakes.  

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Minister of the Interior Ahmed al-Hajjar’s confirmation on Monday that the elections will be held on time set off a flurry of candidacy announcements and party endorsements across social media.

The Ministry [of the Interior and Municipalities] and the State cannot submit to the agenda of the Israeli enemy, and the elections will be held on time

- Lebanese Minister of the Interior Ahmed Al-Hajjar

Lebanon’s municipal councils wield important responsibilities over local services (waste, local economic and development initiatives, municipal police, etc.), yet the status of these councils has been in limbo for the last several years. The last municipal elections were conducted in 2016, and their terms expired in 2022, with the vote being postponed multiple times—first due to logistical and budget issues, then most recently, in April 2024, due to the war. As a result, many Lebanese citizens have expressed increasing frustration with the performance of these authorities.

ARK-UNDP Regular Perceptions Surveys on Social Tensions throughout Lebanon

For example, in the ARK-UNDP Regular Perceptions Surveys on Social Tensions throughout Lebanon (image above), only 38.6% of Lebanese citizens in March 2025 said that municipal authorities had changed life for the better in their area, whereas in February 2018, prior to the onset of the economic crisis, as many as 84.3% of Lebanese citizens once reported that these authorities had changed life for the better in their area. In the same survey, only 30.0% in March 2025 agreed with the statement, ‘The municipality is doing the best it can to respond to the needs of people in this community’, compared to 63.4% in February 2018. 

Key Issues and What to Watch 

Confessional Representation and Balance

While municipal councils legally have no sectarian quota, in practice local elections are often engineered to reinforce the same sorts of consociational power-sharing arrangements that dictate parliamentary elections or appointments in key judicial and security positions. Electoral lists are often carefully composed to maintain communal balances, negotiated not only within parties but also often between rival parties and powerful local families. In many cases, especially in mixed areas, competing political forces collaborate informally to distribute seats along sectarian lines, ensuring that no group is marginalised—but such alliances have also been employed more coercively to stave off competition from anti-establishment challengers, as seen when traditional parties closed ranks to defeat the Beirut Madinati civic campaign in the 2016 municipal elections. For example, since the 1990s, the Future Movement has effectively conceded half of the Beirut municipal council seats to Christian candidates, thus maintaining the city’s political and symbolic equilibrium. However, with the Future Movement boycotting this month’s elections (following its boycott also of the 2022 parliamentary elections), the traditional sectarian balance in Beirut’s council risked being upended. In a somewhat surprising move last week, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri endorsed maintaining the 50-50 Muslim-Christian distribution, despite no legal obligation to do so, seeking to reassure Christian parties and voters amidst broader political tensions. Berri’s endorsement demonstrates how preserving confessional balances in Beirut remains an important political imperative—a calculated safeguard against renewed sectarian friction at a time of national fragility. 

Funds, Recovery and Reconstruction

Since 2019, Lebanon’s economic crisis has starved municipalities of resources. Many local councils became dysfunctional due to lack of funds and staff, leaving governors or district commissioners to manage basic services in their stead​. Large sums from the central Independent Municipal Fund—including significant shares of telecom revenues—have accumulated undisbursed. It is widely expected that once new councils are elected and legally constituted, the central government will finally unlock financial transfers. This could inject much-needed cash for local development, services, and post-war recovery projects. Voters will be watching if the elections pave the way for real improvements in local service provision and economic development, or if local these councils will remain perilously underfunded.  

The devastating events of recent years—the 2019 mass protests, financial collapse, the 2020 Beirut Port explosion, the county’s experience of war—have eroded public trust to an all-time low. On one hand, there is intense frustration and fatigue, and many Lebanese have grown pessimistic about any prospect of change. This is likely to depress turnout. On the other hand, many citizens see this local vote as a new opportunity for reform ‘from the bottom up’, and there are other signs of renewed optimism in this regard. Approximately 43% of Lebanese in the March 2025 ARK-UNDP survey believed that new reforms (e.g. policy changes, cabinet decisions) would lead to improved conditions in 2025. Though fewer than half of Lebanese expressed the same positive outlook on the future in this poll, this nevertheless represented a significant improvement compared to recent years. For the new government, as well as for Lebanon’s new president, holding the municipal elections on time, transparently, and securely will be an important credibility test and a step toward restoring normalcy. The results will also set the tone for the parliamentary elections due in 2026, indicating whether the momentum for change seen in 2022’s protest candidates has trickled down to the local level.