| Posted By Emma Sabry
August 11, 2007
Lebanon is about to face its worst political crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. The deeply-divided country is trapped between the pro-Syrian, Hezbollah-led opposition and the western-backed, anti-Syrian government.
Although the U.S.-backed Prime Minister Fuoad Siniora said the weekend’s by-elections “were a civilised response to political assassinations”, the polls didn’t have such a major effect. In fact, they could have further deepened the divisions in the country, according to an editorial on the BBC.
A tense standoff is a likely result of the elections. The only positive outcome of the by-elections could be the size of the turnout on Sunday, despite concerns of further violence in the country.
The closest battle was in the Christian heartland of Metn in north Beirut as it highlighted the deep split within the country’s Christian minority from which the Lebanese president is chosen. Running for the vacant seat of late MP Pierre Gemayel, who was killed last year, was his father, Amin Gemayel, a leading Christian figure, former president and a strong supporter of the anti-Syrian government. The lesser known candidate, Dr Camille Khoury, stood for the opposition party of Christian opposition leader General Michel Aoun.
Gen Aoun, a former army commander, has allied himself with the pro-Syrian Hezbollah movement and is a candidate in the election for a new president to succeed the pro-Syrian incumbent, Emile Lahoud, which is slated for this autumn. The presidential elections comes amid a political stand-off between Siniora’s government and the Hezbollah-led opposition, a series of political assassinations, and a battle against rebels in the north.
Gen Aoun’s candidate won by only a slim margin; he took the seats by just 418 votes of about 79,000 cast. Many analysts say the results undermine Gen Auon’s leadership. His bloc won most Christian seats in the general elections in 2005 and he claimed to represent 70% of the community. But his opponents now say that the split in Metn prove that his claim was false.
Despite the results, Gen Aoun was buoyant after the vote. “They just can’t beat me,” he told reporters.
On the other hand, Mr Gemayel accused the other side of vote-rigging.
Now both sides try to portray the outcome as a win.
The pro-Syrian Al Akhbar newspaper said the election results laid to rest any doubt about Gen Aoun’s leadership of the Christian community. “Even though his victory was not overwhelming, Aoun came out the winner. He has answered to those who pretend that he is no longer the leader of the Christian community.”
But pro-government commentators said Gen Aoun’s claim to leadership of the Christians has been undermined. “He is now out of competition,” said Samir Franjieh, a pro-government MP.
However the majority of Lebanese agree that there was no clear winner in the votes.
"The Metn election ended politically without a victor and a vanquished," said former Prime Minister Selim al-Hoss, a Sunni elder statesman. "If the contest was a contest of sizes, then both competitors were effectively down-sized.”
"The dent in General Aoun's popularity is perhaps due to the Christian dismay at the accord he forged with Hezbollah in 2006.… But this is small comfort to Gemayel who suffered in his own backyard,” al-Hoss added.
The pressing question now is what next?
Gen Aoun is not a "pro-Syrian". In fact as prime minister in the 80s he fought the Syrians. But as a presidential candidate for the forthcoming elections, he is the preferred choice of Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s president has to be a Maronite Christian, like Gen Aoun and Mr Gemayel.
According to the BBC article, a closer look at the weekend’s election shows that it was Amin Gemayel who took two-thirds of the Maronite vote. Victory for Gen Aoun's party, was only guaranteed by the minority Armenian Christians - it seems almost all of their 8,000 votes went to Gen Aoun's candidate. This leaves the Christian community deeply divided and the future presidency very much in doubt.
Both the Western-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition will claim to have the Christian vote.
In the other by-election in West Beirut, the government retained the seat of Sunni MP Walid Eido, who was killed in an explosion in June. As expected, he was replaced by a Sunni candidate put forward by majority leader Saad Hariri.
However, the results are disappointing for the anti-Syrian government. In the past year, it lost two seats after the assassinations of two Mps and only regained one of them.
This leads to one conclusion: The standoff between the anti-Syrian government and pro-Syrian opposition will continue, with little sign of any breakthrough. Such divisions would grow if they failed to resolve their differences. Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister who is mediating between the two sides, has already warned that Lebanon will face a new civil strife if the 8-month-old political crisis is not resolved soon. "If the Lebanese do not resume essential dialogue, unfortunately there will be more war,” he said.
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