BEIRUT — It is officially election season in Lebanon, and the air is quickly filling up with the chatter of candidates, programs, videos, publicity stunts and alliances. Who can blame them? It has been almost a decade since Lebanon’s last parliamentary elections on June 7, 2009; the delay has been caused political disagreement over the creation of a new electoral law, security concerns, a partial political vacuum and two-year stalemate over the presidency, which led to the elections being postponed twice, allowing parliament to extend its own mandate twice.

Now, nine years and a new electoral law later — a hybrid based on proportional representation where voters have to select a list of pre-decided candidates for their electoral district but get to select their preferred candidate within that list — Lebanon is gearing up for a political battle May 6. The elections are expected to pit the country’s old guard against a new, alternative political current.

Competing for the 128 parliamentary seats are 976 candidates (999 sought to run but 23 were rejected due to incomplete applications), including 111 female candidates, up from the 12 female candidates who participated in the 2009 elections. The candidates are a veritable who’s who of Lebanon’s political, media and civil society.

In addition to entrenched veterans such as former Prime Minister Tammam Salam, Michel Murr, Marwan Hamadeh and Yassine Jaber, this year’s candidates include dozens of sons and daughters of former and current politicians, including first-timers such as Taymour Jumblatt (son of Walid Jumblatt), Tony Franjieh (grandson of Suleiman Franjieh) and Michelle Tueni (daughter of Gebran Tueni).