10 days before the June 7 elections, a shop on Sassine square is selling orange flags underneath a very Large Nayla Tueni poster. The oranges takes up more space as you follow Free Patriotic Movement partisans to the Lazarist School in the Sassine Area. It is there that the party held on Tuesday May 28, its first Ashrafieh electoral gathering, a symbolic location traditionally known as a Kataeb and Lebanese Forces stronghold. The schoolyard is filled with thousands of FPM supporters: families with very young children, groups of teenagers as well as elderly couple… as the schoolyard keeps filling up, the crowds is chanting and dancing along to militant songs glorifying MP Michel Aoun.

They’re waiving their banners and clapping hands as if it were a rock concert but it’s just another political rally like all the others on this electoral season.