تستخدم النخب السياسية اللبنانية النزوح والأزمة الإنسانية لتأجيل الانتخابات مرة أخرى

Lebanon was meant to be preparing for key parliamentary elections in May 2026. Then came the return of war.

Two days after the U.S. and Israel launched their military operation in Iran on Feb. 28, Hezbollah and Israel resumed their own full-scale hostilities. That marked the final collapse of a much-violated ceasefire that for a little over a year had barely kept a lid on fighting. With Israel’s full-scale bombardment of the country and invasion of southern Lebanon again underway, the Lebanese parliament on March 9 postponed scheduled elections by extending its own mandate by two years.

Its justification was a now familiar one: war, instability and a security situation deemed incompatible with democratic process. As conflict escalates across the region and further destabilizes Lebanon with the possibility of long-term Israeli occupation, officials insist that elections are simply not feasible.

But this is not the first time Lebanese elections have been postponed.

Since 2013, the Lebanese government has delayed parliamentary elections multiple times, citing among other factors the war in neighboring Syria, political deadlock and disputes over electoral law. Each delay has been framed as temporary, necessary and exceptional. Yet taken together, they reveal a pattern: Elections in Lebanon seem to be always approaching – and continually postponed.

This is not simply a story of crisis interrupting democracy. It is a story of how crisis is used to govern it.

Crisis as justification and opportunity

There is little question that the latest postponement of elections comes amid trying conditions – airstrikes, displacement and mounting insecurity – that make the logistics of an election extremely difficult.

Indeed, on its face the parliament’s decision appears pragmatic. Elections require mobility, stability and functioning institutions, all of which are currently under strain.

But arguments for postponement obscure an important reality: Political crises in Lebanon have contributed to a self-fulfilling logic that protects the political status quo.

The extension of parliament’s term was announced by Speaker Nabih Berri, a central figure in the country’s political order since Lebanon’s civil war ended in 1990. That order has long been defined by power-sharing among entrenched elites, as well as a system widely criticized for enabling corruption, patronage and institutional paralysis.

The current system was formalized in the Taif Agreement, which formally ended Lebanon’s devastating 15-year civil war. The accord distributed power along sectarian lines, with key state positions allocated to religious communities. While intended to ensure representation, it instead entrenched elite bargaining and veto power, making consensus both necessary and perpetually elusive.

Over time, this has produced a political system defined less by governance than by managed deadlock – where institutional paralysis is not incidental but built into the system itself. This fragility is compounded by the interplay of domestic and external forces, including the significant political and military role of Hezbollah. Emerging out of the Lebanese civil war and the broader context of Israeli occupation in the 1980s, Hezbollah developed as an armed resistance movement and later consolidated its position as both a political actor and a military force operating alongside the state, complicating the already tenuous balance of power.

This fragility is further reflected in repeated institutional deadlock, including prolonged presidential vacuums like between 2014 and 2016. Then, Hezbollah and its allies blocked consensus over a candidate, leaving the country without a head of state for over two years.

The politics of delay

Within Lebanon’s fractured political context, postponing elections has serious consequences. Fundamentally, it changes when and how political accountability happens in ways that benefit those already in power. In Lebanon, elections increasingly function as deferred events: always anticipated but continually postponed.

This prolongs the tenure of a political class that has faced sustained public anger since the 2019 uprising, when mass protests erupted across the country over economic mismanagement, corruption and deepening inequality. The movement forced the resignation of the government and exposed the fragility of the state’s political and economic order.

While this challenges individual leaders and the broader system of governance, it did not translate into sustained structural reform or a meaningful reconfiguration of power. Instead, the post-2019 period has been marked by deepening economic collapse, institutional paralysis and repeated political deadlock that has included prolonged delays in government formation.

Election delays also narrow the space for political alternatives. New parties, independent candidates and reformist movements rely on electoral cycles to gain visibility and legitimacy. Postponing elections thus also defers possibilities for political transformation.

Finally, postponement reinforces a system in which accountability is continually suspended. Without elections, there is no formal mechanism through which citizens can register discontent or enact change.

In this sense, delay is not simply a byproduct of instability. It is a political outcome with clear beneficiaries in power, both within the Lebanese state and among actors such as Hezbollah, whose influence is often reinforced in periods of internal and external crisis.

Crucially, elections are never canceled outright. They are deferred, extended, rescheduled. While the promise of democratic participation remains, its realization is continually pushed into the future.

Displacement and exclusion

The current crisis also raises deeper questions about who is able to participate in Lebanon’s political life. Escalating violence in the south has displaced thousands, disrupting livelihoods, mobility and access to basic services. Participation in elections becomes not only difficult but, for many, secondary to survival.

This dynamic is not new. Periods of conflict in south Lebanon, from the prolonged Israeli occupation prior to 2000 to the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, have repeatedly disrupted electoral participation, displacing communities and reshaping who is able to vote, where, and under what conditions. Electoral processes have, at times, proceeded despite such disruptions, but often in ways that marginalize those most affected by violence.

This follows a broader pattern in which those most affected by crises in Lebanon are also those least able to shape the country’s political outcomes.

Lebanon’s electoral system has long been marked by exclusion: from diaspora voters who face logistical and administrative barriers to those displaced – entirely excluded from the political process.

Today, renewed conflict, including Israeli military operations in the south, intensifies these constraints.

The postponement of elections, then, is marked by both genuine logistical constraints and facilitating the interests of entrenched political elites.

It also risks deepening existing inequalities. Large segments of the population, particularly those in the majority-Shiite south, will face disproportionate barriers to participation as displacement, insecurity and the destruction of infrastructure make voter registration, campaigning and access to polling stations significantly more difficult.

These are the same communities whose political representation is most directly shaped by cycles of violence, displacement and uncertainty.

Why elections still matter

All this does not mean that elections no longer matter in Lebanon. On the contrary, their repeated deferral points to their continued importance. But it also highlights the fragile nature of democratic processes within a system shaped by entrenched power and persistent instability.

At the same time, there are ongoing, if uneven, efforts to reckon with this paralysis. Reform-oriented political actors and segments of civil society have continued to push for electoral transparency, diaspora participation in elections and institutional reform.

International actors, including the International Monetary Fund and the European Union, have also tied financial assistance and recovery frameworks to governance reforms, including calls for credible and timely elections. Yet these pressures have so far yielded limited structural change, often absorbed into the same status quo they seek to transform.

Meanwhile, the escalation of violence in the south and the persistent possibility of expanded military confrontation continues to reshape the conditions under which any future election might take place.

In Lebanon, democracy is not suspended in times of crisis but stretched. And in that stretching, the distance between citizens and political change continues to grow. That will only continue unless emerging pressures, both domestic and international, are able to create forms of genuine accountability.

Jasmin Lilian Diab does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.