Lebanon’s Parliament Extends Its Term to 2028 as War and Displacement Upend Election Plans

BEIRUT — Lawmakers vote to delay elections amid war

As Israeli warplanes streaked over Beirut’s skyline and smoke rose from strikes on the city’s southern suburbs, Lebanese lawmakers met behind blast barriers in the capital on Monday and voted to give themselves two more years in office.

In a contentious session on March 9, Parliament approved a law extending its mandate until 2028, postponing legislative elections that had been scheduled for May 2026. The measure passed with 76 votes in favor, 41 against and four abstentions in the 128-seat chamber, according to the speaker’s office.

Supporters of the move cited what they called “force majeure” — an escalating war between Hezbollah and Israel that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, devastated parts of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley and brought repeated airstrikes to Beirut. Opponents labeled the extension unconstitutional and “the worst form of democracy,” arguing that the political class was again using crisis to avoid facing voters.

The vote ensures that the parliament elected in 2022 will remain in place for at least six years. It also means the same legislature will almost certainly elect Lebanon’s next president when the term of President Joseph Aoun ends, giving current power blocs a decisive role in shaping the country’s leadership well into the next decade.

Berri convenes session as security fears dominate debate

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a longtime power broker and head of the Shiite Amal Movement, convened the session in Beirut with a minute of silence for those killed since the latest round of fighting began. Lawmakers then turned to a single item on the agenda: whether to prolong their own term beyond its scheduled expiry in May.

Berri and other allied MPs argued that holding nationwide elections in the coming months was not feasible while Israel carries out daily strikes and ground raids in Lebanon and while hundreds of thousands of residents from the south and the southern suburbs of Beirut remain uprooted.

Officials say more than 500,000 people have been displaced since early March, when hostilities sharply intensified following Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks on northern Israel and an expanded Israeli military campaign inside Lebanon. The National, a UAE-based newspaper, has reported that nearly 400 people have been killed in Lebanon in just over a week of strikes, including dozens of women and children.

During the parliamentary debate, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, a former judge at the International Court of Justice who took office last year, acknowledged that the country was facing exceptional conditions but stopped short of explicitly backing the two-year delay.

“There is no answer, no data,” Salam told MPs, according to local coverage of his remarks, when asked when the war might end and elections could be safely held. He said it was up to Parliament to decide how to respond to the uncertainty.

Hezbollah backs extension despite government crackdown

Just days before the vote, Salam’s government had declared Hezbollah’s military and security operations illegal, ordering security forces to treat attacks on Israel as acts outside state authority. Hezbollah, which holds 13 seats in Parliament, nonetheless supported the extension, underscoring the complex overlap between the movement’s role in the war and its presence in Lebanon’s formal politics.

Hezbollah’s bloc, Amal and several allied or centrist groups backed the law, along with some independent lawmakers who were elected on reform platforms in 2022. The Progressive Socialist Party was also among those voting in favor, according to local media tallies.

The main Christian parties — all of them in opposition to Hezbollah — lined up against the two-year extension.

Free Patriotic Movement leader Gebran Bassil said the decision violated democratic norms and hinted at a legal challenge. “This is the worst form of democracy,” he told reporters after the vote, adding that his bloc would consider appealing to the Constitutional Council, the body empowered to review the law’s constitutionality.

Kataeb Party chief Samy Gemayel struck a more ambivalent tone. While he voted against the duration of the extension, he said his party accepted that campaigning and voting could not proceed normally in the current climate.

“We were convinced that elections could not take place under these circumstances and had to be postponed,” Gemayel said. But he and other Christian leaders argued that any delay should be strictly limited — for example, six to 12 months — instead of the two-year period that was ultimately adopted.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea similarly contended that the length of the extension went beyond what security conditions required and accused entrenched political factions of seeking to “cling to power” under the cover of war.

Several independent and reformist MPs, including prominent figures who emerged from the 2019 protest movement, condemned the law as unconstitutional. Former Beirut Bar Association head Melhem Khalaf warned that repeatedly extending Parliament’s mandate erodes the principle that voters must periodically renew or revoke lawmakers’ legitimacy.

Online, reaction from many Lebanese was sharply negative. On social media forums, users described the move as “blatant corruption and manipulation” and expressed particular anger at self-styled “change” MPs who supported the extension despite earlier promises to break with traditional political practices.

A familiar pattern—under unusually severe pressure

Under Lebanon’s constitution and current electoral law, parliamentary terms are set at four years, with elections held in the 60 days before a term expires. In practice, however, Lebanese legislatures have often outlived their mandates.

Parliament repeatedly extended its term during the 1975–1990 civil war, allowing the same body to sit for more than a decade. More recently, the parliament elected in 2009 renewed its own mandate three times, citing security concerns linked to spillover from the Syrian conflict and disputes over electoral law, and stayed in office until 2018. Municipal elections have also been postponed several times.

Analysts say the March 9 decision fits this long-standing pattern of resorting to legal extensions during crises. What is different now, they note, is the combination of a major regional war, an economic collapse that has gutted savings and public services since 2019, and the presence of reform-minded MPs who campaigned on promises to restore institutional accountability.

The extension also intersects with a broader confrontation over Hezbollah’s role in the state. The current government and President Aoun are widely seen as less aligned with the group than previous administrations, even as Hezbollah’s military actions against Israel are central to the justification for delaying the vote.

War conduct and donor pressure add to political strain

Human rights organizations have raised separate concerns about the conduct of the war. Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of unlawfully using white phosphorus artillery shells in residential areas of southern Lebanon, including the village of Yohmor, saying such use in populated zones violates international humanitarian law. The Israeli military has said it is not aware of using white phosphorus in Lebanon and insists all munitions are employed in accordance with international law.

Diplomats and international donors now face a familiar dilemma in Lebanon: whether to accept a delay presented as a technical necessity, or to press for firmer timelines and safeguards to prevent further slippage. Western governments and financial institutions have been urging Beirut to enact structural reforms and strengthen state institutions, including in relation to non-state armed groups, as conditions for major aid packages.

For now, Lebanon’s political clock has been reset. The current parliament, elected amid street protests and an economic free fall, will remain in place through at least 2028, barring an unlikely reversal by the Constitutional Council.

Whether the extra time will allow leaders to steer the country through war and economic crisis — or instead deepen public mistrust in a system that repeatedly delays the moment of electoral reckoning — will depend on what lawmakers do with the mandate they have just prolonged under the roar of warplanes.