LEBANESE OPPOSITION WINS SEAT
By Bassem Mroue – Associated Press Writer

AP
Aug. 6, 2007, 5:49AM

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The government suffered a blow Monday when a
little-known opposition candidate defeated a former president in a
tense parliament by-election that showed the divisions among Lebanon’s
once-dominant Christians.

The vote Sunday to replace two assassinated anti-Syrian legislators
turned into a showdown between the pro-U.S. government and opponents
supported by Syria and Iran.

One seat, in Beirut, was won by a pro-government candidate who ran
virtually unopposed. The second took place in the Christian stronghold
of Metn, north of Beirut, in which a political newcomer allied to
Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun defeated Amin Gemayel, who
was Lebanon’s president from 1982-1988.

Lebanon has been locked for months in a political standoff between
the government and opposition that also has largely fell along
sectarian lines.

Shiite Muslims, led by the pro-Syrian Hezbollah, are predominantly
opposition while the Sunnis form the backbone of the anti-Damascus
ruling coalition.

Christians have been nearly evenly split between the two camps. The
fierce division was clear in Metn’s vote. Before dawn Monday, Interior
Minister Hassan Sabei announced the results, declaring Aoun’s ally,
Kamil Khoury, the victor by a margin of only 418 votes, with 39,534
votes against Gemayel’s 39,116. Turnout was 46 percent.

The defeat was a blow for Gemayel, the head of one of Lebanon’s most
powerful Maronite Christian families, who was running in his home
district to fill a seat that his son Pierre held before he was gunned
down in November.

The loss could severely hurt the elder Gemayel’s hopes of running
for president again. Aoun, a former army commander who is the most
prominent Christian leader in the opposition, already has said he
intends to run to replace pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, who term
ends later this year.

The country’s traditional power-sharing agreement among the country’s
various religious sects requires that the president by a Maronite
Christian.

The impact of the vote is largely symbolic. Because of the political
deadlock, parliament has not met in months.

Pro-Syrian Parliament speaker Nabih Berri has said he would not
recognize the results of the two by-elections because they were called
by what he and the rest of the opposition consider an illegitimate
government. The by-elections were held despite the refusal of the
president, Lahoud, to approve them, as required.

With the results, the government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora still
clings to its small majority in parliament, with a five-seat edge
over the opposition.

Before the final results became clear, both sides in Metn accused
the other of fraud. Each had supporters celebrating in convoys on
the streets in Beirut and the Metn region.

Witnesses and security officials said partisans of Aoun and Gemayel
faced off in a neighborhood east of Beirut late Sunday, with scores
of Lebanese army troops and riot police deployed to prevent trouble.

One Aoun supporter was wounded in the hand when he was shot at by
Gemayel supporters near the town of Bikfaya, Antoine Nasrallah,
a spokesman for Aoun, told Al-Jazeera. Security officials said one
person was slightly injured but did not say from which camp. Voting
took place in a "calm and democratic atmosphere," said a statement
from the Interior Ministry.

Government supporters blamed Gemayel’s loss on the large Armenian
community in the Metn district, suggesting that Khouri was not
representative of the powerful Maronites as a result. Armenians are
largely Catholic or Orthodox Christian.

"Two-thirds of the Maronites vote for Gemayel and their seat goes to
Aoun with 418 votes edge," the pro-government Al-Mustaqbal newspaper
said Monday.

Gemayel on Sunday accused the major Armenian party, Tashnak, of fraud
saying the group "wants to impose its will on the people of Metn." He
called for a revote in the mainly Armenian Bourj Hammoud area of Metn.

His comments received harsh criticism from legislator Hagop
Pakradounian of Tashnak who denied Gemayel’s accusations of fraud. The
former president later said that he did not mean to insult anyone
adding that "Tashnak is a Lebanese party. No one doubts that."

The opposition painted the win as a rejection of Saniora’s
coalition. "Metn democratically defeats Amin Gemayel and the
(parliament) majority with him," the pro-opposition daily As-Safir
said.

The results could be a boost for Aoun as he prepares to stand for the
presidency later this year — likely be a deeply divisive and bitter
race. The president is chosen by parliament, and Saniora’s backers
see it as a decisive chance to put an anti-Syrian figure in a post
that has remained the strongest ally of Damascus in the country.

In Sunday’s by-elections, voters were replacing legislator and cabinet
minister Pierre Gemayel and lawmaker Walid Eido, a Sunni Muslim who
was killed in a Beirut car bomb in June. Both were government allies
and vocal opponents of neighboring Syria, which controlled Lebanon
for 29 years until it was forced out in 2005.

In Beirut, the vote for Eido’s seat was easily won by Mohammed al-Amin
Itani, a candidate of parliament majority leader Saad Hariri’s Future
Movement, particularly since the Hezbollah-led opposition did not
officially sponsor a candidate.

Gemayel and the government have accused Damascus of being behind the
assassination of his son and a number of other anti-Syrian politicians
and public figures over the last two years, part of what they deem
is Syria’s plan to end the majority’s rule through attrition. Syria
has denied the allegations.