Lebanese voters went to the polls to elect their parliament for the first time in nine years Sunday, with top parties expected to preserve a fragile power-sharing arrangement despite regional tensions.   

The Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and its allies could stand to reinforce their clout on the political game in Lebanon, a small country clamped between war-torn Syria and Israel.   

The election comes after a drawn-out political stalemate finally produced a new electoral law in 2017 that introduced a proportional list-based system.   

The campaign passed without major incidents but security forces were out en masse across a country still sporadically rocked by attacks and with a history of political assassinations.   

Queues of voters started forming outside some polling stations in Lebanon’s main cities even before they opened at 7:00 am (0400 GMT).    “It’s the first time I vote,” Therese, 60, told AFP outside a voting centre in central Beirut.   

 “I’ve come to support civil society because there’s nobody else I like in this country, but I doubt they will win,” she said.   In the southern city of Tyre, 28-year-old Jalal Naanou said:   

More than 3.7 million Lebanese are eligible to vote, and will chose from 597 candidates who are running on 77 closed lists for a seat in the 128-strong parliament. 
-AFP