There used to be a time when electoral ads meant posters showing no more than a politician’s smiling face and a three-word slogan. But, as is quite obvious driving through any part of the country at present, times have changed.

While regulations added to the electoral law succeeded to a certain degree in controlling ad space – the sides of buildings are less cluttered with posters than in previous years and lamp posts and tree trunks are relatively bare – electoral content and spending are two things election supervisors are still struggling to monitor.

Poster wars

The 2009 electoral campaigns kicked off almost immediately with scandal.

The biggest uproar over campaign ads so far started with the rapid and widespread appearance of Free Patriotic Movement billboards picturing an attractive, light-skinned young woman with puckered lips next to the slogan “Sois Belle Et Vote” (French for “be pretty and vote”).

Almost immediately, numerous groups and individuals rejected what they saw as the sexism of the posters.

Sami Saab, creative director of electoral campaigning for the Change and Reform bloc, explained, “The idea comes from the French expression ‘Sois belle et tais toi’,” he told NOW Lebanon. “We are basing our campaign on the French slogan, but we’re crossing out ‘tais toi’ [shut up] and replacing it with ‘vote.’”

“I am speaking to women and telling them that being pretty is not enough. I appreciate your beauty, but I will appreciate you more and you will be prettier if you vote and change through political participation,” he added.

While the ad has proved popular in some quarters, many observers said that the slogan does not serve its purpose.

Salah, a Lebanese engineer who will be voting for the first time this year, said, “It just doesn’t work for me. Even if they were trying to change the French saying, when I look at the ad, it is the same saying that comes to my mind before anything else.”

 “I wonder if they give you a tote bag full of free perfume samples and other goodies after you vote,” one Lebanese blogger posted on his site.

This was precisely the reaction feared by women’s rights activists.

 “When I first saw the ad, I was very, very angry,” said Nadine Mouawad, founder and campaign manager of Feminist Collective (FC), a Beirut-based NGO that focuses on women’s rights.

“As women, we were very angry, whether we support FPM or not. It was very insulting to women because what does beauty have to do with voting? They said they changed [the French saying] into something positive. The problem with ‘Sois belle et tais toi’ is not ‘tais toi’; it’s ‘sois belle’,” she said.

However, the FPM’s Saab maintains that it is not solely external beauty that is meant by the ad.

“I am provoking every Lebanese woman who strives to be pretty: [I am saying] I want you to be pretty, and I also want you to be pretty through your rights, your decisions, your participation… I want you to participate in change because you constitute 50% of Lebanese society,” he said.

The FC produced a counter ad showing the same model with a bruised eye photo-shopped on, coupled with the phrase: “Be intelligent and don’t vote because no one cares about your rights.”

Another NGO focusing on gender issues, KAFA, created a poster saying, “The candidate wants your vote and you want a law to protect you.”

Feminist groups aren’t the only ones that created posters in retaliation to the controversial Free Patriotic Movement sign. One produced by the March 14 alliance shows a woman wearing the Iranian-style full-body veil, the chador, instead of the bare-sleeved Free Patriotic Movement model. The ad, hinted majority coalition supporters, is directed toward female members of the FPM’s Shia allies.

However, Saab insisted that Hezbollah’s female constituents “will surely identify with the [“Sois belle et vote”] ad  because beauty is not only external.” There’s no contradiction between being a Hezbollah ally and appreciating glamorous women in ads, he said. Still residents of the Dahiyeh, the Hezbollah dominated neighborhood south of Beirut, said that the ad is nowhere to be found in the area.

Another ad that was circulated online had the same visual with the phrase “Sois bête et vote Tayyar,” French for “Be stupid and vote for Tayyar,” or the FPM.

But the “Sois belle” posters are not the only campaign ads heating up the race between majority and opposition parties. When the Future Movement started its “Future is where you spend the rest of your life” campaign, the FPM retaliated with their own posters in Future’s trademark blue, with “No Future without Change” written across the middle in FPM orange.

Election supervisors say there is no rule on competitive advertising or content save for a few articles in the electoral law on inflammatory or slanderous material.

Gilbert Doumit, general coordinator of election monitoring at the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE), told NOW Lebanon that Article 68 of the electoral law bans libel, slander, defamation and anything that triggers religious, confessional and ethnic sensitivities, or acts of violence or riots, along with anything in support of terrorism, crimes or sabotage.

“But any law is always debatable: violations that we publish go through a lot of debating… In all campaigns there are subliminal messages,” he said.

Still Doumit added that “This year parties and candidates are very cautious about adhering to the law in the maximum way possible.”

The Supervisory Commission on the Electoral Campaign (SCEC) monitors media space and campaign finance but does not censor content. That is the duty of Lebanese General Security, according to the Interior Ministry.

For its part, the ministry, in collaboration with municipalities and the SCEC, ensures candidates get free pre-specified public spaces to post their ads on a first-come first-serve basis. Media companies who rent out billboards to clients are also obliged to provide the SCEC with copies of the contracts made with the parties to ensure that campaign spending is conducted according to the law.

Election Day

Despite efforts to regulate posters, LADE published a report last week citing 63 violations by electoral campaigns. (Some of the more common violations include hanging pictures and adverts in unauthorized places.)

But many experts say no matter when or where they’re hung, the adverts will not influence people’s voting behavior on June 7.

“Political advertising in Lebanon is all about preaching to converts, meaning talking to an audience who believes in your message to begin with. So it doesn’t take too much convincing,” said Tarek Chemaly, communications consultant and lecturer at ALBA academy, University of Balamand and Université St. Esprit.

“People are convinced that whatever political current they follow has the best ads, no matter what the quality of the ad is…But again, these ads know exactly how to tackle their audiences and how to arise their instincts, so it is normal for people to sympathize with them,” he said.

One case in point is Jad, 26, whose name has been changed to protect his identity. He said that he will be voting for the same bloc he voted for in 2005. “I could shut out all media campaigns and ads on the streets, and I would still know who to vote for. I would like to see one color more often, but even if I don’t find one such billboard, I am still voting for that party,” he said.