Hawkish Sunni wins Lebanon local election, risking new sectarian tensions

A hawkish Lebanese Sunni politician has won local elections in the second largest city of Tripoli in a result that marks a blow to long-established Sunni leaders and risks reviving tensions among rival sectarian groups there.

The municipal elections under way nationwide for a month have been seen as an important indicator of sentiment in Lebanon, where a political crisis has twice forced the postponement of parliamentary elections that should have been held in 2013.

A list backed by emerging Sunni politician Ashraf Rifi won a majority of seats on the council elected in Tripoli on Sunday, defeating an alliance backed by Sunni leaders including former prime ministers Saad al-Hariri and Najib Mikati.

Preliminary results indicated that none of the 24 seats on the council were won by members of the Christian or Alawite communities which were both represented in the outgoing council.

One analyst described the result as a sign of growing hardline sentiment in the mostly Sunni city that is a historic bastion of Sunni Islamist groups.

A Christian MP from Tripoli resigned in response to the result. In a statement, Robert Fadel said the outcome had marginalised “more than one fundamental component” of the council and called for a review of the election law so that “it doesn’t unintentionally turn into a source of strife”.

Rifi is a former police chief who resigned as justice minister this year in protest at what he described as the dominant role occupied by Hezbollah, a heavily armed Shi’ite group backed by Iran.