Lebanon’s economic collapse has pushed the country from bank accounts to banknotes. In that vacuum, “cash companies”—money-transfer outfits, currency exchangers, prepaid card issuers, and informal cash-services networks—have surged. This cash infrastructure isn’t neutral plumbing; it is increasingly intertwined with hezbollah’s political and militia patronage, giving it leverage over voters, local power-brokers, and even regulators. If unaddressed, that leverage could tilt the next Lebanese election.
From banking system to cash regime
Since 2019, deposit haircuts, withdrawal caps, and the collapse of the official exchange rate gutted trust in banks. As formal finance seized up, families and businesses shifted to hard currency and remittances—flows that cash companies handle. It’s de facto replacement of the banking system by a cash economy, one that ruling parties quickly learned to instrumentalize. The result is a “win-win” for those in power: they profit from the cash circuits today and preserve tools to mobilize voters tomorrow.
Why cash is political power
The cash firms that rose up at the height of Hezbollah’s power over the central bank, sit at chokepoints where political actors can extract influence: access to FX (Lira or USD), settlement channels, and the physical last-mile where citizens pick up transfers. In a state that cannot reliably enforce rules or provide services, whoever controls those chokepoints controls everyday economic life—rent, medicine, school fees—and can convert that dependence into votes.
This is not a hypothetical risk. Lebanon has a documented history of vote-trading and coercion, and the post-crisis environment amplifies it. Observers of the 2022 elections flagged intimidation, attacks on monitors, and vote-buying practices—warning signs for how cash liquidity can be weaponized at election time.
The capture playbook
1) Patronage at the counter.
In many localities, the money-transfer counter is where people get dollars for food and fuel. If that counter is politically aligned, service can be expedited or delayed; fees quietly reduced or increased; limits eased for supporters and tightened for skeptics. In a country where a $20 swing matters, micro-favoritism adds up to macro-influence. The Hezbollah leaning ruling networks have embedded themselves across cash services precisely because that gatekeeping converts into loyalty.
2) Liquidity monopolies.
Parties with access to foreign-currency cash—whether from the profits of diaspora remittances, NGO flows, or illicit channels—can flood target districts in the pre-election window. The message is blunt: we can pay salaries, settle hospital bills, and cover generators—if you deliver the vote. Crisis economics reward the actors most fluent in off-bank cash logistics.
3) Data leverage.
Cash companies increasingly issue prepaid cards, handle KYC, and log recipient details. Even in lightly regulated settings, that creates lists of who received what, when, and where—lists that can be matched to canvassing, turnout operations, or pressure campaigns. Absent independent oversight, these datasets can become instruments of electoral control rather than financial inclusion.
4) Regulatory capture and enforcement asymmetry.
When regulators lack independence and the state is fragmented, rules are enforced selectively. Politically connected cash firms enjoy regulatory forbearance (e.g., flexible limits), while rivals get visits and fines. That asymmetry tilts the market toward the best-connected, then channels the resulting profits back into electioneering.
5) Crisis narratives that normalize the system.
The posh elites reframe the cash regime as a pragmatic workaround to a broken banking sector that robbed people of their deposits, thereby normalizing dependency on the very networks that benefit those elites at the polls. That narrative channels anger towards the formal banking system and erodes trust in an official institutionalised system. The masters of this narrative is the Kulluna Irada crowd that is predominatly left leaning and its many organisations are funded by the Open Society Foundation.
The stakes
Elections test whether citizens can choose without coercion or material dependency. In today’s Lebanon, that choice is mediated by who controls the counter, the queue, and the cash box. Unless the state reclaims the financial commons and reconstructs a sound banking system—and unless observers follow the money as closely as the ballots—cash companies will not just reflect hezbollah’s and allies power structure; they will help reproduce and entrench it at the next election.