In May 2025, Lebanon held its first nationwide municipal elections in nearly a decade. They took place amid institutional fatigue and political transition, and presented a key opportunity to test whether state institutions and specifically the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities (MoIM) could function credibly, transparently and at scale under pressure.

Working with Youth4Governance, Siren Analytics and Siren Associates, the Ministry deployed a series of interventions and integrated digital systems that enabled it to manage elections in over 1,000 municipalities, coordinate more than 5,000 public servants, and respond to thousands of public inquiries in real time.

Learning from the past

The foundation of this transformation was a structured analysis of how elections unfold. The team consolidated the Ministry's previous complaints archive, monitoring reports from past elections, and legal decisions from 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.

Transforming the Operations Room

The Ministry's Central Operations Room oversees every aspect of the elections and was the focal point of reform efforts. Previously, the Room faced several critical challenges: unclear roles and responsibilities, underdeveloped standard operating procedures, lack of incident classification and escalation mechanisms, and reliance on manual, paper-based processes with fragmented data across departments.

The reform efforts focused on strengthening strategic orientation, clarifying roles, enhancing procedures, shifting focus toward electoral integrity, introducing digitisation, and improving data integration and automation.

Modernising complaints management

The old complaints management system, while enabling basic resolution and escalation, suffered from manual processes that led to frequent errors and missing documentation. Excel-based logging delayed resolution, limited reporting capabilities, and hindered institutional learning.

The solution was implementing osTicket, an open-source ticketing system customised to handle all complaint types, adapt to user roles, and log high volumes of electoral complaints in a structured format. Standardised operating procedures were developed to clarify roles, accelerate ticket handling, and eliminate manual documentation inefficiencies.

The centralised digital archive powered real-time dashboards, transforming raw data into actionable insights that helped the Ministry track trends, coordinate responses, and ensure transparency.

Despite handling over 5,300 inquiries and complaints, the Ministry achieved exceptional responsiveness: the call centre maintained a 95% answer rate with an average call time of 43 seconds and a wait time of just 9 seconds.

Media monitoring meets OSINT

Monitoring media and social platforms allows the Ministry to pick up on public concerns that never reach the call centre. The Ministry’s traditional media monitoring—split across two teams and limited to newspapers and TV—lacked timeliness, coordination, and analytical depth. It provided no insight into social platforms where much election-related discourse occurs, and insights were shared slowly through early-morning emails or USB transfers.

The new approach extended the osTicket system and incorporated AI tools like Dalil to centralise media alerts and support faster, more structured decision-making. Election-related misinformation, security incidents, and public sentiment were logged, tagged, and escalated into structured workflows. Outputs included a daily media report on each election day; a report every three hours on election day; an end of day report; and one final report produced after all four rounds were complete. The result was fewer surprises, faster interventions, and greater transparency.

Strategic communications

Anticipating heavy strain on the call centre from information gaps, the Ministry developed a comprehensive communications strategy with three components:

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

2. 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

This strategy established the Ministry as the trusted, primary source of timely and accurate electoral information through 24/7 availability and proactive, multi-channel communication.

Operational support

Beyond handling complaints, the Ministry's call centre faced significant outbound demands: verifying polling staff, issuing notifications, and ensuring electoral box readiness. High call volumes, tight timelines, and limited staff capacity created bottlenecks.

Simple tech-based measures—SMS forms and automated sorting—accelerated staff confirmation, box verification, and shortage resolution, significantly reducing strain on the call centre.

AI as a public sector force multiplier

Where human capacity was limited, modular AI agents stepped in. Y4G and the Ministry’s agentic AI implementation targeted four key areas:

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

• TV monitoring agent: continuously monitored live television channels for election-related content, instantly flagging relevant information to the Operations Room based on predefined criteria.

• Turnout tracker agent: directly engaged 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 necessary details and submitting approval requests.

These agents freed staff up to focus on strategy, oversight, and leadership. They were also built with governance at the core, combining strict access controls, ethical safeguards, and human oversight to ensure compliance with national standards.

What this means for statecraft

The 2025 municipal elections demonstrated what's possible when digital systems are embedded in institutional logic. Each system was designed to support the Ministry's core mandate, forming a scalable foundation for responsive, transparent, and coordinated public governance.

The Youth4Governance initiative was central to this success. By embedding multidisciplinary teams of young professionals—drawn from law, policy, engineering, and media backgrounds—within the Ministry, Y4G helped bridge short-term delivery pressures with long-term institutional learning. These teams worked alongside civil servants to co-develop practical tools and support implementation from within.

The overall success resulted from institutional commitment, inter-agency coordination, and structured reform efforts applied under pressure. It showed that even under crisis conditions, public institutions can evolve, and when they do, trust can begin to be restored.

Click here to read the full report with recommendations on how to build on these successes in future election cycles.