Deniz BaranNTRODUCTION: In May 2018, Lebanon held its first parliamentary elections since 2009, and Hezbollah secured 13 out of 128 seats in parliament. It was not a remarkable change from the results of the previous elections (12 seats in 2009 and 14 seats in 2005); however, when the seats of Hezbollah’s allies are also added to that number
[1], together they obtained more than half of the seats (65) in the Lebanese parliament. Everybody knows that Hezbollah is the main force within this alliance, and therefore, the results of the last general elections demonstrate that Hezbollah will be the “kingmaker” in Lebanon throughout the upcoming years.
Hezbollah has held 10 or more seats in the Lebanese parliament since the 2000 general elections. Before this, it participated in the general elections of 1992 and 1996, obtaining 8 and 7 seats respectively.[2]
The group’s gradual electoral improvement has been seen not only in the number of seats they secured in the parliament, but also in their share of the vote. While approximately 5 percent of the Lebanese people voted for Hezbollah in the mid-‘90s, in recent elections Hezbollah won more than 15 percent of the total vote.
It is also important to draw attention to the fact that Michel Aoun, who is considered to be the group’s greatest ally and who is a former presidential candidate for the group, was able to win the presidential election in 2016 thanks to the great support of the organization.
All of the aforementioned facts demonstrate the growing influence of Hezbollah within Lebanese politics.[3] Even if it seems to have been a gradual improvement rather than a sudden rise, Hezbollah has manage to become the main political actor and driving force on the Lebanese political stage. No doubt, this is a great achievement for an organization which was established merely as an armed non-state actor (NSA) representing and struggling for a certain sect within society, and which has been marginalized by both the international community and by many major regional players.
What are the factors behind the success and growing influence of Hezbollah within the Lebanese political system? Which steps did Hezbollah take to accommodate the current political system of Lebanon and turn from an armed militant non-state actor into a “state actor”? This article attempts to briefly shed light on these questions, arguing that the main answer for Hezbollah’s success lies in its ever-growing “state-like” (quasi-state) character in spite of its foundation as a non-state actor. To elaborate: Hezbollah is a kind of non-state actor which has been operating like a state in order to strengthen its powerbase; however, it is also a sort of non-state actor which has wielded its power to challenge the state apparatus from within, and its strategy seems to have been to accommodate itself to the current political system instead of withdrawing from the current system in order to replace it with a completely new regime. Therefore, the state-like character of Hezbollah is examined in order to understand its progress. Afterwards, the paper examines the breaking points in the history of Hezbollah in order to see the crucial decisions it made in applying its strategy.