The 24-candidate list of independents dubbed Beirut Madinati – Arabic for “Beirut is my city” – is equally split between men and women, and Muslims and Christians.
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Media reported a decisive victory for the “Beirutis” list, headed by Jamal Itani, after his announcement, based on initial results.
A candidate from civil society initiative Beirut Madinati said that even if the list did not win any seats, it had at least shaken up the political establishment.
Support is likely to continue for Beirut Madinati despite disappointing election results, AFP reports.
The turnout was quite low in Beirut, only 20 percent, as traditionally many voters in this city are disinterested in politics.
The government has cited security concerns and war in neighboring Syria as reasons for the delays in organizing elections.
The municipality elections that got underway on Sunday mark the first vote in Lebanon in six years: parliamentary elections that were due to be held in 2013 have been postponed twice due to political instability exacerbated by the Syrian conflict.
The Lebanese capital has seen low turnout in the past, in part because many eligible voters live outside the city. Lebanon’s parliament has failed to elect a president since May 2014 because of lack of quorum amid political disagreements. She said the number was up from 314 violations in the previous elections six years ago.
“Holding the polls in Beirut and the Bekaa represented a victory for Lebanon and its democratic system and for the principle of peaceful power rotation, which allowed this system to regain some of its vitality and to prove its distinguished nature in the region”, Mustaqbal added. No one was wounded during the voting.
Hezbollah and its allies ran in 80 municipalities out of 143 where voting took place the previous day in the Bekaa Valley and won nearly all the seats.
“It was a complete victory”, Kassem said of the Baalbek and Brital vote.
Eastern Lebanon has held its first elections in almost six years over the weekend, and early results are showing a dominant performance for the coalition of parties which includes Hezbollah, with the parties particularly strong in the area around Baalbek. The list’s lineup included 12 Muslim and 12 Christian candidates.
The list backed by a coalition of three Christian parties – the Kataeb, the LF and the FPM – garnered around 10,000 votes in the tightly contested polls with a 900-vote difference with another rival list. However, the figure reached 48 percent in the Hezbollah-popular east and higher in Ba’albek.
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Painting itself as the standard-bearer of the Lebanese outcry against corruption, the Beirut Madinati party is an electoral list led by grassroots activists who launched last summer’s “You Stink” campaign that called on the Lebanese government to provide the capital with normal sanitation services and clean up the garbage that had flooded the streets.
