What Does Hezbollah Election Success Mean Locally, Regionally?

The victory is highly crucial because of the country’s geopolitically sensitive position in the region and also because many regional and international powers are vying with their opponents to get the Lebanese leaders on their side amid the tense conditions the region is dealing with. Before elections reports emerged suggesting that some foreign countries hostile to Hezbollah, have been trying to manipulate the polls to make sure that the rivals of Hezbollah win.

Still, March 8 Alliance has managed to win the majority of the seats in the 128-member parliament. The important aspect of Hezbollah’s lead is that the movement even without considering the votes of the allied Christian Free Patriotic Movement, headed by the current president Michel Aoun and with the sole count of other allies succeeded in winning the threshold, which is one-third plus one formula (43 seats). But what kind of message does this triumph carry and how will it influence the Lebanese equations in the future?

Sovereignty returns to the hand of citizens

Return of rule and independence to the Lebanese could be mentioned as the crucial outcome Hezbollah and its allies' victory in the election. In the past decades, the Western powers and the Arab governments through a variety of tricks were using sway over the ruling parties and politicians to reign over the nation. Lebanon’s political scene in many cases has been a theater for them to roam free in the politics.

But the Shiites of the country in general and Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah in particular spoke against the flagrant meddling by the foreign actors in the domestic affairs, insisting that the door should not be open to the foreigners to meddle and that the leaders should not allow for the violation of the state’s sovereignty. For example, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah specifically addressed the Saudi Arabia interference represented by detaining the Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Riyadh and forcing him to resign from there, which was deemed as damaging to the Lebanese’s national ego and state’s independence.

Now March 8 is to lead the country following its May 7 win. According to the Lebanese constitution, the president and the prime minister posts are determined by the parliament. This means that the victorious Alliance officially will handle the parliament and the government. With this in mind and with the pro-independence stances of the winning side, it can be noted that the self-rule is genuinely returning to the Lebanese after long years.

Hezbollah leader’s victory speech verifies that the rule has now been restored to the hands of the Lebanese people. Speaking to the people celebrating the victory, Sayyed Nasrallah thanked all of those loyal to the resistance choice, adding that arrangement of the parliamentary election itself was a big national achievement for the state and government. He also hailed the relativity-based new election law as “better and righter,” recommending that the country should not step back to the old majority-based election law.

“Nobody can say that the new electoral law’s aim is to marginalize a particular side. Among political parties that took part in the election, nobody intended to push others to the sidelines,” he told to the cheerful crowds.

He continued that the new parliament’s makeup does secure a support basis for the strategic choice of “army-people-resistance equation,” in a reference to his idea that the people, military, and Hezbollah can do better to defend the country against Israeli aggression if united.    

In addition to the Hezbollah chief’s remarks that are viewed as carrying a real essence of the popular demands, Israeli regime's confession to the idea that governance has returned to the hands of Lebanese people is also interesting. The Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett posted on Twitter that Hezbollah's gains in the Lebanese election on Sunday show that the state is indistinguishable from the movement and Tel Aviv should not distinguish between them in any future war. “Lebanon=Hezbollah,” he tweeted on May 7, emphasizing that the election results came in accordance with what Tel Aviv has been expecting for a long time.

Western-backed front defeat

The vote outcome has yet other consequences among them the shrink of the power of the pro-Western and American Lebanese camp. In fact, the last week’s election should be seen a huge defeat for the Western-led alliance comprised of the US, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, and the Israeli regime which over the course of the past years spared no chance to impair the Resistance front and dragging the whole Lebanon into calamitous crises.

The US-led front so far imposed on Lebanon a set of wars, such as the 2006 aggression known as the 33-Day War, from which the movement turned out successful and dealt a big blow to the regime's army. And now the election marks another fiasco to the West and its allies. They have been spending largely for months but they failed to secure success for their local allies. The boycott of the polls by a majority of the Sunni community can be also viewed as a strong response of the Lebanese citizens to the brazen interventionist policies of the West in relation to Lebanon.

Door now open to more Resistance camp’s regional successes

The election results have another corollary, that is paving the way further regional successes the Axis of Resistance, compromising Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian resistance movements. Iraqis nation also went to the polls on 12 May first election after the defeat of ISIS terrorist group in the country. In fact, the current month is putting to test the Resistance front. Hezbollah’s win can be inspiring to the Iraqi voters to vote for the parties in alliance with the Resistance orbit.