You won’t read this in the New York Times:
The Saudi/US sponsored March 14 coalition in Lebanon won the parliamentary election, by getting 71 out of 128 seats (gaining +1), but lost the popular vote on election day by a margin of 45.2% to 54.8%. (via Friday Lunch Club).
The “March 8 Coalition” between the Shi’ite parties Hezbollah and Amal, the Christian FPM party and a few others received 839,371 votes, whereas the “March 14 Coalition” between the Sunni Al Mustaqbal party, the Christian Lebanese Forces, the Druze PSP and a few others, received 692,285 votes.
How can this be you ask? Well it has to do with Lebanon’s bizarro sectarian election quotas, which massively under-represent Shi’a voters and over-represent Christian voters.
(These numbers also give you an idea just how small this messy Lilliput really is…).