Lebanon Update -- The Elections are Over

Finally, the fourth round of Lebanese Elections has concluded and the result was a landslide for the anti-Syrian opposition coalition led by Saad Hariri. Each week has had a different outcome and for a while it looked as if the opposition would be unable to gain a majority in the Lebanese Parliament, but today's sweep gives them far more than that, but less than the two-thirds majority they once hoped for.

Reuters reports:

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) - An anti-Syrian Lebanese opposition alliance won the final phase of a parliamentary election in a landslide on Sunday, giving it a clear mandate to steer Lebanon out of Syria's shadow.

An unofficial count for north Lebanon showed an alliance led by Saad al-Hariri sweeping all remaining 28 seats, while its rivals conceded they were heading for defeat.
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The victory means the 128-seat assembly has an anti-Syrian majority for the first time since the 1975-1990 civil war.
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Hariri's bloc has now won 72 seats, an absolute majority, but still a far cry from the two-thirds the anti-Syrian front had predicted.

[Christian leader Michele] Aoun and allies have 21 seats while a pro-Syrian Shi'ite Muslim alliance between Hizbollah and Amal have 35 seats.

Read it here.

The outcome sends complex and contradictory signals that will have pundits analyzing for quite a while. To some extent the votes split along religious lines, with Shiites voting for Hizbullah's slate and Maronite Christians voting for Aoun's. But the anti-Syrian opposition alliance united Arabs and Christians alike while Aoun found allies among the pro-Syrian Sunnis. To some extent the outcome could be seen as a return to the sectarian divisions that plagued Lebanon in the past, but it also contains the seeds of a genuine pluralistic national sentiment. Which tendency will prove to be the stronger?

Stay tuned....

UPDATE:

Here's the NYT [relatively clueless and a bit racist -- they seem to think that maybe, just possibly, Arabs are capable of, or at least receptive to..., hold on for this..., "democracy"] take on the elections.

YaLibnan has its take here. Lots of neat details such as the mudslinging of the last days before the elections [political rhetoric taken as fact by the MSM] Jumblatt's agenda, Lahoud's prospects, etc.

AFP notes Hariri's willingness to accommodate Hizbullah. The guy's obviously trying to build national unity. [Here]

BBC does a bio piece on Hariri here.