Page "Politics of Lebanon" Paragraph 10

Lebanese political institutions often play a secondary role to highly confessionalized personality-based politics.

Powerful families also still play an independent role in mobilizing votes for both local and parliamentary elections.

Nonetheless, a lively panoply of domestic political parties, some even predating independence, exists.

The largest are all confessional based.

The Free Patriotic Movement, The Kataeb Party, also known as the Phalange Party, the National Bloc, National Liberal Party, Lebanese Forces and the Guardians of the Cedars ( now outlawed ) each have their own base among Christians and it's controversial as to which group has the largest popularity.

Amal and Hezbollah are the main rivals for the organized Shi ' a vote, and the PSP ( Progressive Socialist Party ) is the leading Druze party.

While Shi ' a and Druze parties command fierce loyalty to their leaderships, there is more factional infighting among many of the Christian parties.

Sunni parties have not been the standard vehicle for launching political candidates, and tend to focus across Lebanon's borders on issues that are important to the community at large.

Lebanon's Sunni parties include Hizb ut-Tahrir, Future Movement, Independent Nasserist Organization ( INO ), the Al-Tawhid, and Ahbash.

In addition to domestic parties, there are branches of pan-Arab secular parties ( Ba ' ath parties, socialist and communist parties ) that were active in the 1960s and throughout the period of civil war.