BEIRUT: An electoral alliance among Tripoli’s main parties appeared to have scored a victory in Tripoli’s municipal elections, preliminary results showed early Monday, as Lebanon wrapped up the fourth and final round of local council polls in the Northern and Akkar districts in generally peaceful voting.

By capturing most if not all of Tripoli’s 24-member municipal council, the “For Tripoli” list, backed by former premiers Saad Hariri and Najib Mikati, former ministers Mohammad Safadi and Faysal Karami, several local MPs and Islamist groups, dealt a setback to resigned Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi and former MP Misbah al-Ahdab who formed separate rival tickets in an attempt to break the traditional leaders’ sway in Lebanon’s second city.

In Tannourine in the Batroun district, which witnessed a hotly contested electoral battle for the control of the town’s 18-member municipal council, a candidate ticket backed by Telecommunications Minister Boutros Harb, who is aligned with the Kataeb Party and the Marada Movement, achieved a clean sweep against an opposing list supported by the Lebanese Forces and the Free Patriotic Movement, initial results showed.

However, the LF-FPM alliance did well in other towns in the Batroun district.

In Qobeiyat, one of the largest Maronite towns in the north, a candidate ticket, backed by Future MP Hadi Hobeish, the Kataeb Party and former MP Mikhael Daher, has captured the town’s 18-member municipal council, defeating a rival list supported by the FPM and the LF, preliminary results indicated.

The results retained Abdo Abdo as Qobeiyat’s mayor.

Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk did not hold a news conference after polls closed at 7 p.m. Sunday to talk about the voter turnout and the electoral process as he had done with the previous three rounds of municipal elections in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, Mount and south Lebanon earlier this month.

Instead, the Interior Ministry issued a statement releasing figures on the voter turnout in the Northern and Akkar districts, saying that the four stages of municipal and mukhtar elections were peaceful and trouble-free. It also said that Machnouk would hold a news conference at 12:30 p.m. Monday to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the entire electoral process.

“The fourth and final stage of municipal and mukhtar elections in the Northern Lebanon and Akkar governorates has ended. With this, the municipal and mukhtar electoral process in Lebanon has ended without any incident of an exchange of fire or casualties being registered throughout Lebanon,” the Interior Ministry said.

According to the ministry statement, the general voter turnout in the north and Akkar districts reached 45.3 percent. Voter turnout was lowest in Tripoli at 25.8 percent, while the Akkar district saw the highest turnout at more than 60 percent.

Voter turnout reached 26.9 percent in the Tripoli district, the Koura district witnessed a 43.8 percent turnout, the Batroun district 54.4 percent, the Minyeh-Dinnieh district 57.2 percent, the Akkar district 61.6 percent, the Bsharri district 36.6 percent and the Zghorta district 36.6 percent, the statement said.

It added that the ministry received on its hot line 700 questions and complaints that were dealt with immediately by the ministry’s central operations room.

There are 850,005 eligible voters in Northern Lebanon and Akkar.

However, an election monitoring group said that more than 380 violations have been recorded, while four people were arrested during Sunday’s elections.

The Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections said in a report issued late Sunday that 385 violations, including cases of bribery and vote-buying, were recorded.

At least 10 cases of vote-buying were documented, the report said.

Forty-five percent of the violations were recorded in Tripoli, LADE said, noting that four campaign offices in the city were paying voters to cast ballots for their candidates.

The National News Agency reported that two people suspected of paying bribes were arrested in the Zghorta district town of Aito.

The Interior Ministry said that two campaign delegates in the Akkar village of Ayyat were also arrested for misconduct.

As in the previous polls, thousands of Army troops and police were deployed outside polling stations in the north to ensure smooth and safe voting.

In Tripoli, the municipal elections were the first to be held following years of sectarian fighting between gunmen from rival neighborhoods that ravaged parts of the poverty-stricken city. An Army crackdown on rival militias in 2014 finally restored law and order in the city.

Four lists competed in the northern city. The “For Tripoli” list faced off against the “Tripoli’s Choice” ticket backed by Rifi, who has recently split from the Future Movement over policy differences.

Ahdab’s “Tripoli Capital” ticket and a fourth list backed by a civil society group competed for seats in the municipal council.

Rifi confirmed his breakaway from the Future Movement. “I am not anyone’s heir. I am an independent Hariri phenomenon and I will remain so,” Rifi told reporters after casting his ballot in Tripoli.

“I left the flock. I do not follow anyone blindly. I voted for the Tripoli’s Choice list because it is unacceptable that anyone dictate the decision of Tripoli,” he said.

Mikati said that he was confident of the election results in Tripoli. “Tomorrow will be another day in Tripoli regardless of who the winner is,” the former premier told LBCI channel late Sunday. “We are assured of the results. No one can say that there are politicized people on our list. Our role is to support the municipal council’s work.”

Twenty-eight out of 128 municipalities in Akkar have won by acclamation.

In the Zghorta district, the heartland of the Frangieh and Mouawad families, an electoral alliance grouping the Marada Movement, the Independence Movement, the Future Movement, the FPM, the LF and representatives from the Doueihy family and civil society groups has swept the polls in the region.

Speaking to reporters in Zghorta, MP Sleiman Frangieh, head of the Marada Movement, said the alliance between his party and the Independence Movement would benefit the town and district of Zghorta.

After casting his vote, Independence Movement party head Michel Mouawad said the pact reached over the elections was not confined to his party and the Marada Movement, but assured that it included many parties.

The alliance reflects the shifting alliances between parties in Lebanon, where long-time rivals such as the Marada and the Independence movements are standing side-by-side in the elections.

In Bsharri, known as the heartland of the LF, the party captured all the town’s municipal council seats. MP Strida Geagea, wife of LF leader Samir Geagea, praised the party’s victory in Bsharri.

“Bsharri is the hometown of Al-Hakim [Geagea] and it is in his heart. It is normal to offer this victory to him,” she said in an interview with MTV station, shortly after results showed the LF-backed list emerged victorious from the elections.

“The historic reconciliation between the LF and the FPM has a special flavor in Bsharri,” she said.

She added that Bsharri’s newly elected municipal councils would carry out their jobs in the best manner for the benefit of all the people.

Strida Geagea thanked Machnouk “who, despite the political and security conditions, insisted on the democratic game and holding the municipal elections.” She also thanked the Lebanese Army and its commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi for ensuring peaceful elections.