Lebanon awaits results of first vote since multiple crises
The Hindu
A new generation of independent candidates in Lebanon elections hopes to kindle the kind of change that a 2019 protest movement failed to deliver
The results of Lebanon's first elections since multiple crises ravaged the country were expected on Monday, with Opposition groups hoping for modest but unprecedented gains.
According to provisional turnout figures, 41% of Lebanon's 3.9 million registered voters cast a ballot on Sunday in 12 hours of polling that saw several irregularities and minor incidents.
A new generation of independent candidates hopes to kindle the kind of change that a 2019 protest movement failed to deliver, and looked likely to do better than the single Assembly seat they clinched last time.
But most of Parliament's 128 seats are expected to remain in the grip of the entrenched groups blamed for the country's woes — chiefly the economic downturn that plunged most of Lebanon into poverty.
For many voters, the election was a chance to vent their anger at the hereditary ruling elite that an October 2019 uprising, the country's financial default and a cataclysmic 2020 explosion in the heart of the capital failed to remove.
"These elections are first and foremost a means of rooting out this political class and getting back our Lebanon," said Shadi, a 38-year-old whose flat was destroyed in the Beirut blast, declining to give his second name.
Like many others who posted pictures on social media Sunday, he chose to dip his middle figure in the bottle of electoral blue ink after casting his ballot.
With a new government in place in Delhi, Singapore hopes to schedule the Ministerial Roundtable with India shortly, says Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan. In an exclusive interview, he speaks about the impact of the elections on ties, the “missed opportunity” of RCEP and the new buzz around Andhra Pradesh’s capital Amaravati.