South Lebanon votes in municipal election seen as test of Hezbollah support

In southern Lebanon, voters are casting ballots in municipal elections that are intended to demonstrate support for Hezbollah, a Shia-majority political and armed group.

The final stage of Lebanon’s erratic local elections is set for Saturday, when Hezbollah is allied with Amal, the party led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

Following months of attacks, the group and Israel were supposed to end a November 2024 ceasefire. However, lsrael has continued to make sporadic strikes as recently as on Thursday when airstrikes targeted a number of locations in the south.

Given that they have already snagged unopposed control of numerous councils, Hezbollah and Amal are widely expected to win over municipal elections.

Residents of Kfar Kila, a town nearly levelled by Israeli attacks, cast ballots in nearby Nabatieh, which had a high turnout in border villages ravaged by the conflict from last year. In Tyre, residents of the surrounding areas cast ballots.

As he visited the country’s south on Saturday, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun declared to reporters that “the will of life is stronger than death and the will of construction is stronger than destruction.” He claimed that Aaichiyeh, his hometown, had voted for him for the first time in 40 years.

Hezbollah members who were recovering from a string of Israeli attacks in September 2024, when thousands of pagers nearly simultaneously detonated, killing nearly a dozen people, and injuring nearly 3, 000, were among those who were going to the polls.

Hezbollah legislator Ali Fayyad, who represents border villages, stated in Nabatieh that “Southerners are proving once more that they are with the choice of resistance.”

Hezbollah is still a major political force.

Hezbollah is in a crucial moment with the vote. The elections provide a chance for the organization to reaffirm its influence in the region, despite the group’s diminished military might and political leverage after the conflict.

“Lebanon is still reeling from the Hezbollah-Israel war from the previous year. Israel continues to target Hezbollah despite a ceasefire, according to Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, who is based in Nabatieh.

Hezbollah, Khodr continued, “Hezbollah, undoubtedly, lost a lot of its military power during the conflict, and it is using these elections as an opportunity to demonstrate that it still has political influence.”

Many believe Hezbollah failed to provide them with protection during the conflict, but isolation fears persist, she said. They feel vulnerable in a divided nation, not just toward Israel, and feel that Hezbollah’s supporters are also marginalizing the entire community.

Hezbollah is being pressured to disarm as required by the United States-brokered truce with Israel because the new government of Lebanon has pledged to do so.

After 14 months of fighting, Lebanon now faces a sizable challenge of rebuilding, according to the World Bank, which needs more than $11 billion to be rebuilt.

Hezbollah launched a rocket attack on Israel in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in October 2023 as a result of a surprise attack led by Hamas.