Reuters photo: The third round of Lebanon's election cycle takes place today. The first round, in Beirut, took place two weeks ago and resulted in a sweep for the followers of Saad Hariri, son of the martyred PM. The second round last week produced a similar sweep for Hizbullah, the Shiite militia and it's secular ally, Amal. This week's polls are the first to be seriously contested, pitting Christian leader Michele Aoun against Druze Socialist leader, Walid Jumblatt -- both of them leaders of anti-Syrian factions, although Jumblatt's people have charged that Aoun has sold out to the Syrians.
AP reports:
Sunday's vote in the central and eastern regions - together accounting for nearly half the 128 seats in Parliament - is too close to call, and the winners could decide the country's political direction for the next four years.
....While the race in most of Lebanon is largely between pro-and anti-Syrian camps, the central and eastern areas have thrown up surprising alliances between pro-and anti-Syrians.
The vote in central Mount Lebanon, the nation's most populous region, has been billed as the "mother of all battles," with friends and foes running against each other in a jumble of baffling alliances.
Political tensions have already spilled over into violence. The government sent army and police reinforcements to Mount Lebanon fearing clashes between rival groups, mainly allies of Jumblatt and those supporting former army commander Michel Aoun, who returned home last month after 14 years in exile.
Aoun, who fought and lost a war against Syria in 1989, was one of Syria's main Lebanese foes but recently broke with other opponents of Damascus and forged alliances with pro-Syrian politicians.
Last week, a gun battle in the mountain resort of Sofar between Jumblatt's supporters and those of Druze rival - and Aoun ally - Talal Arslan left at least seven people wounded.
In the Baabda-Aley constituency, the Aoun-Arslan alliance is fighting a ticket backed by Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party and the Lebanese Forces, the main Christian militia during Lebanon's civil war, as well as the Syrian-backed militant group Hezbollah. The battle is too close to call.
In the Chouf area, the Druze heartland, a Jumblatt-Lebanese Forces ticket is expected to do well, while rival Christian tickets are battling it out in the Christian heartland of Kesrwan-Byblos.
In Metn, Aoun has forged an alliance with pro-Syrian politician Michael Murr and Armenian political party Tashnag, against an anti-Syrian ticket headed by legislator Nassib Lahoud and Pierre Gemayel, son of former President Amine Gemayel.
Read it here.
In other words, the unity of the early protests, when there was a common foe, has given away to democratic deal-making. To some extent this is all well and good -- the essence of democracy -- but in Lebanon, with it's history of civil conflict, the danger is always that faction rivalries will deteriorate into civil war. Reports of occasional armed skirmishes between factions are not encouraging.
The key to preserving any democratic system is that the losers are willing to accept the validity of the results. Will the losers in this round accept their fate? Time will tell.
Stay tuned....
RELATED:
YaLibnan has a district by district breakdown of the candidates and factions [with a handy reference chart]. They argue that the decisive factor today will be the level of turnout in the Christian community. Read it here.
Well, the results are in and they are conclusive. Michele Aoun swept the Christian vote and Jumblatt the Druze. Reuters reports:
ALEY, Lebanon (Reuters) - Anti-Syrian Christian leader Michel Aoun scored a clean sweep against rival Christian politicians on Sunday in the most crucial round of Lebanon's parliamentary elections.One more week to go. Things are beginning to shape up. The old religious factions seem to be intact with unified leadership. Does this presage a recurrence of civil conflict? Stay tuned........
Unofficial counts showed candidates backed by Aoun set to clinch 15 of 16 seats up for grabs in Sunday's third round of the elections in the Maronite Christian heartland of North Metn and Byblos-Kesrwan north of Beirut. There was no Aoun-allied candidate running for the undecided seat.
But the candidates of former general Aoun, who fell out with other anti-Syrian leaders after returning in May from 14 years in exile, looked set to be beaten by a list backed by Druze chieftain Walid Jumblatt in the Baabda-Aley district, where 11 seats are being contested.
Jumblatt's list won all eight seats in the mainly Druze Shouf constituency.
Among those who lost to Aoun was Nassib Lahoud, long touted as the opposition's preferred presidential candidate. Sunday's defeat looked likely to end any presidential aspirations
The pro-Syrian Hizbollah guerrilla group and its allies also increased their share in parliament with 10 candidates winning seats in the eastern Baalbek-Hermel district. The alliance has now won 33 seats in the 128-assembly, with two more seats set to be won later in the night.
Hizbollah now has 13 members elected to the new parliament compared to 12 in the outgoing assembly.
Read the Reuters report here.
The WaPo considers this to be a setback for the anti-Syrian opposition. I'm not so sure. They quote Jumblatt to the effect that Aoun's victory has set the country back twenty-five years. I'm not so sure that's the case. The anti-Aoun charges sound a lot like simple election rhetoric. Jumblatt has had extraordinary access to the western press and it tends to reflect his perspective. Read the WaPo account here.
YaLibnan's post-mortem is here. They find encouragement in the fact that former enemies have campaigned together peacefully. They repeat Jumblatt's charges that Aoun is a Syrian pawn, but it seems that his position is really middle-of-the road, seeking reconciliation rather than open hostility and, as YaLibnan notes he has promised to bow to the "will of the people" on this matter.
For a more positive assessment of Aoun's role see Lebanon Political Journal here. It makes the excellent point that attempting to shut the pro-Syrian elements out of the political process completely would simply invite subversion. Aoun is trying to forge an alliance that will reduce confrontation. Of course this message is ignored by the western press which is still infatuated with the confrontational positions articulated during the Cedar Revolution.
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