Rebuilding state capacity: Lebanon's 2025 electoral transformation

Client's Challenge

In May 2025, Lebanon held its first nationwide municipal elections in nearly a decade. The Ministry of Interior and Municipalities (MoIM) faced a critical test: managing elections in over 1,000 municipalities, coordinating more than 5,000 public servants, and responding to thousands of public inquiries in real time—all amid institutional fatigue and political transition.

The Ministry's operations suffered from several weaknesses:

Operations room: short-term logistics focus, unclear roles and responsibilities, and manual paper-based processes that fragmented data across departments.

Complaints management: manual, paper-based systems with Excel logging that caused frequent errors, missing documentation, delayed resolution, and limited reporting capabilities.

Media monitoring: manual processes split across teams with slow information sharing, no social media coverage, and unstructured, unsearchable outputs.

Communication and capacity: information gaps across stakeholders strained the call centre, while additional demands for staff verification, notifications, and electoral box readiness created operational bottlenecks due to high call volumes and limited staff capacity.

Approach

Working with Youth4Governance, Siren Analytics and Siren Associates, the Ministry deployed a comprehensive digital transformation strategy based on institutional learning and integrated systems.

Learning from the past

The transformation began with a structured analysis of how elections unfold. This included:

• Reviewing the Ministry's previous complaints archive

• Examining monitoring reports from past elections

• Mapping and analysing legal decisions issued during the last municipal elections

This multi-source review provided clarity on where issues typically arise, what citizens and electoral stakeholders ask most frequently, and which legal steps need to be taken.

Operations room transformation

Reform efforts focused on strengthening the Central Operations Room through:

• Shifting the strategic focus from short-term logistics to long-term strategy

• Defining clear roles and responsibilities

• Developing comprehensive standard operating procedures

• Introducing digitisation and improving data integration and automation

• Emphasising electoral integrity and transparency

Digital complaints management

The Ministry implemented osTicket, an open-source ticketing system customised to:

• Handle all complaints types with structured formatting

• Adapt to different user roles and responsibilities

• Log high volumes of electoral complaints efficiently

• Introduce standardised procedures that clarified roles, accelerated ticket handling, and eliminated manual documentation

The centralised digital archive created by this new system powered real-time dashboards, transforming raw data into insights for trend tracking and response coordination.

Enhanced media monitoring

The new approach extended the osTicket system and incorporated AI tools like Dalil to:

• Centralise and consolidate media alerts for faster decision-making

• Log, tag, and escalate election-related misinformation, security incidents, and public sentiment

• Create structured workflows for rapid response

Strategic communications

The Ministry developed a comprehensive communications strategy with three components:

1. An AI-driven chatbot providing citizens with essential voting information (procedures, required documents, laws, and polling locations)

2. A dedicated media space offering real-time turnout dashboards and complaint displays to ensure consistent messaging across news outlets

3. Enhanced social media presence featuring turnout comparisons with previous elections

Operational support systems

Simple tech-based measures were introduced to reduce strain on the call centre:

• SMS forms streamlining internal communication processes

• Automated sorting to accelerate staff confirmation and box verification

• Shortage resolution to improve resource allocation and problem-solving

AI force multiplication

Fourn AI agents were deployed where human capacity was limited:

• Call center agent: automated inbound complaint processing and outbound coordination with polling staff

• TV monitoring agent: continuously monitored live television channels, instantly flagging relevant election-related content to the Operations Room

• Turnout tracker agent: engaged directly with polling station heads through chat interfaces to collect real-time turnout data and generate live regional updates

• Secretary agent: managed appointment requests for the Minister through interactive chat systems, gathering details and submitting approval requests

All agents were built with governance at the core, combining strict access controls, ethical safeguards, and human oversight to ensure compliance with national standards.

Outcomes

Operational excellence

Despite handling over 5,300 inquiries and complaints, the Ministry achieved exceptional performance metrics:

• 95% answer rate at the call center

• 43 seconds average call time

• 9 seconds average wait time

Enhanced responsiveness

The integrated digital systems enabled:

• Real-time response: immediate processing and escalation of complaints and incidents

• Transparent operations: real-time dashboards providing insights for trend tracking and coordination

• Proactive communication: 24/7 availability through multiple channels

• Fewer surprises: structured monitoring and alert systems preventing crisis escalation

Institutional transformation

The digital transformation demonstrated:

• Scalable foundation: systems designed to support the Ministry's core mandate formed a foundation for responsive, transparent, and coordinated public governance

• Staff empowerment: AI agents freed staff to focus on strategy, oversight, and leadership

• Institutional learning: embedded multidisciplinary teams bridged short-term delivery pressures with long-term institutional learning