Excessive restrictions were placed on Lebanese citizenship due to the importance of the countries demographic in running political operations.[22] However, under the Syrian-occupied Lebanon in 1994, the government naturalized over 154,931 foreign residents,of Palestinian and Syrian descent.[27] The purpose of these naturalization was to sway the elections to a pro-Syrian government.[28] This allegation is based on how these new citizens were bused in to vote and displayed higher voting rates than the nationals did.[27]