BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese voted in their first general election for nine years on Sunday, with the Tehran-backed Hezbollah group and its allies expecting to emerge stronger, a result that would affirm Irans regional ascendancy from its own borders to the Mediterranean.

Sunni Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri is frontrunner to keep his job and form a new coalition government after an election seen as vital to Lebanons economic stability, but his Future Movement was widely expected to lose seats.

For many younger Lebanese, Sunday brought a first chance to vote in a national election after parliament twice extended a term that expired in 2013, but Interior Ministry figures from early in the day suggested turnout would be low.

President Michel Aoun appeared on television late in the afternoon to urge people to vote. Voting ended at 7 p.m. to all except those already waiting in polling stations.

Although the election used a new proportional system, many voters said they expected the countrys entrenched, sectarian elite to remain on top but others were optimistic.

We hope we will open a new era, said Mahmoud Daouk, voting in Beirut in one of the areas where new faces were taking on the old sectarian elite.

Party flags flew from cars and mopeds, loudspeakers blared campaign songs and young people wore T-shirts bearing the faces of political leaders.

The vote was held under a new proportional system that has confused some voters and made the contest more unpredictable.

But it still preserves a sectarian power-sharing system and another coalition government including most of the major parties, like the one Hariri has led since 2016, looks likely, analysts say.

While foreign monitors gave a generally positive assessment, tensions flared in several locations. Missiles were thrown during street clashes in Beirut, a candidate claimed her car was attacked in the Bekaa Valley town of Zahle, and rival groups clashed in the northern city of Tripoli.