BEIRUT: The Lebanese American University has announced its “indefinite” postponement of student elections scheduled for Friday due to “the ongoing political tension in the country.” “The university’s utmost priority remains the well-being of its students and stability on both of its campuses,” a statement by LAU said.

The decision was announced just hours after a minor incident between Lebanese Forces and Free Patriotic Movement students.

The electoral process was set to take place on both of the university’s campuses, in Beirut and Jbeil. While the results of polls in Beirut were predetermined because students from the Progressive Socialist Party and March 14 parties were boycotting the elections, a heated race was expected on the Jbeil campus between the LF and FPM.

A statement by FPM’s Youth and Student Affairs Committee condemned what it called the “assaulting of the movement’s students by Lebanese Forces members.”

“The latter [LF members] prevented the movement’s students from gathering near the cafeteria [in Jbeil] and beat them,” said the statement.

But Charbel Eid, the head of the LF Student League, dismissed the FPM statement, saying that an FPM student told the administration that he was slapped in the face near the cafeteria’s crowded entrance.

“When summoned by the administration, our students were surprised about the matter,” Eid explained to The Daily Star.

Eid noted that the incident was “too silly” to be the reason behind the university’s decision to postpone elections, adding that LF students were likely to win the polls in Jbeil, as they have done for the last 12 years.

Following the university’s decision, dozens of pro-LF students held a sit-in near the Jbeil campus to protest the step.