LEBANON’S ruling pro-western coalition staged a dramatic electoral upset on Sunday by winning 71 seats in the country’s 128 member parliament. Official results, announced yesterday, confirmed early counts.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hizbullah-led opposition, which won 57 seats, said yesterday: “We accept these results... with sportsmanship and in a democratic way and we accept that the ruling camp has achieved the parliamentary majority,” he said .
Opinion polls conducted in the weeks before the election had predicted a narrow victory for the opposition. However, while Hizbullah’s Shia voters delivered their districts, the movement’s Christian ally, Gen Michel Aoun was unable to win sizeable majorities in critical Christian constituencies, including Zahleh in the Bekaa Valley.
Analyst Sofia Saadeh said that last-minute backing for the ruling coalition by the Maronite Catholic patriarch Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir and President Michel Suleiman persuaded some Christians to vote for the ruling Sunni, Christian and Druze bloc headed by Saad Hariri, son of the slain former premier Rafik Hariri.
Commentators also believe that Thursday’s address to the Muslim world from Cairo by US president Barack Obama boosted the vote for this bloc because his words were seen by many in the region as constructive and led some voters to shift to the pro-western camp.
Former US president Jimmy Carter, whose observers monitored balloting at 350 stations, admitted at a press conference yesterday that an influx of thousands of overseas Lebanese to vote in marginal constituencies, vote buying, intimidation and mismanagement had a negative impact.
He observed, however, that both blocs found the result acceptable and praised Lebanon for conducting a peaceful election on one day rather than staging voting over four consecutive Sundays as was the previous practice.
Since the result was heralded by rounds of gunfire, speculation has focused on whether the Hariri coalition will invite the opposition to enter a broad national unity government.
The opposition is likely to condition participation on being given a veto on major decisions. But Mr Hariri has said that he will not grant this demand because his bloc has a mandate to rule on its own.
Fearing that deadlock on this crucial issue could lead to violent confrontation, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a key member of the Hariri camp, warned against isolating the opposition.
If Hizbullah becomes a partner in the new cabinet, it is not expected that the US and EU will boycott the government as they did the Hamas-led governments formed after the Muslim movement won the January 2006 Palestinian legislative election.
“They don’t want to turn Lebanon into another Gaza,” said one commentator.
Mr Carter said the refusal of western powers to recognise the outcome of the Palestinian legislative poll had been a mistake which would not be repeated.
Ahead of the Lebanese election, sources at the White House told him the Obama administration would recognise the result whoever won, he said. Since the US and EU are courting Syria and Iran, analysts argue it would be counter-productive to try to marginalise Hizbullah and its allies.
While some sort of cohabitation between the two blocs may be arranged, a contest could be looming between Mr Hariri, who seeks the premiership, and outgoing prime minister Fuad Siniora, the US favourite for the post.
Meanwhile, failed opposition candidate Elia Joseph Skaff from the litmus district of Zahleh has issued a challenge to the outcome on the grounds that the ruling party had registered 20,000 Sunnis in that area in recent months.