Political Parties’ Street Backyards

Habib Battah makes an excellent observation on Lebanese political parties “owning” certain streets of the country and often blanketing them with party symbols (think Kataeb and the Beirut port area, Hezbollah and the airport road), and asks this question:

Do the LF and others actually pay to advertise on these spaces? Do they require a permit or unwritten agreement from the municipalities to conduct such dangerous and disruptive highway work? Or do the cranes operate unilaterally on the premise that no one would dare stop them?

I’ll venture a short answer that municipalities in charge of such fiefs are usually staffed by party loyalists and ambitious political climbers, but I’m also interested in the technical details. For example, many of the billboards on the road leading to the airport are run by Pikasso, a professional advertising company. But those billboards are most of the time rented by Hezbollah. Does the party pay full price? If it does, why doesn’t it also advertise in less hospitable environments where ads are supposed to be more effective? Is it all about avoiding sabotage?