OUTCOME OF METN POLLS MAY HINGE ON ARMENIANS
By Michael Bluhm

Daily Star
on_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=99909
March 7 2009
Lebanon

BEIRUT: The looming decision of the dominant Armenian party Tashnag
to join forces with either the March 14 or March 8 camps might well
determine the outcome of the Metn district in June’s pivotal general
elections, a number of analysts told The Daily Star on Friday.

"If the Armenians side with March 14, then [the Metn] is guaranteed
for March 14," said Oussama Safa, executive director of the Lebanese
Center for Policy Studies. "If not, then there will be a battle." The
1989 Taif Accord reserves six of Parliament’s 128 seats for Armenians,
who make up about 9 per cent of Lebanon’s Christian population, said
a December 2008 report from the Lebanese Association for Democratic
Elections and Democracy Reporting International.

The choice before Tashnag comes down to continuing its relationship
with Change and Reform Bloc head MP Michel Aoun, the March 8
coalition’s top Christian politician, or returning to a previous
partnership with Metn heavyweight MP Michel Murr and his freshly minted
electoral ally, Phalange Party chief and former President Amin Gemayel,
said Walid Moubarak, director of the Institute of Diplomacy and
Conflict Transformation at the Lebanese American University. Tashnag
will also have to factor in its traditionally close ties to the
country’s presidents, as well as pressures from Armenian groups
outside Lebanon favoring one side of the political rift here, he added.

In considering Aoun, Tashnag and Armenian voters will be asking
whether Aoun, the popular politician in the predominantly Christian
Metn region, will have coattails long enough to carry the rest of his
lists into the legislature and unseat March 14 as the parliamentary
majority, said retired General Elias Hanna, who teaches political
science at Notre Dame University.

In the feverish run-up to the June 7 poll, Aoun’s Free Patriotic
Movement (FPM) is vetting potential candidates to see whether they had
their own constituencies preceding Aoun’s unexpected 2005 electoral
success, or simply depend on the retired general to attract voters,
Hanna added.

Hanna said he expected Tashnag to stay with Aoun because their
2005 electoral alliance restored Tashnag, which is supported by the
majority of Armenian voters, to its full strength after five-time
former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri had for years teamed up with two
smaller Armenian parties to deny Tashnag the Beirut district’s two
Armenian parliamentary seats.

"The Armenians consider that Michel Aoun gave them what Rafik Hariri
took out of their hands," Hanna said. "They consider that Michel Aoun
gave them their rights."

On the other hand, Safa said the Armenians seemed be leaning toward
the March 14 Forces, which would deal a major blow to Aoun and March 8
hopes. Many analysts have said the elections will be won in Christian
districts such as the Metn, Kesrouan and Zahle.

If March 14 can secure an electoral bond with Tashnag, "they will make
a very strong statement that they have chipped away at the leadership
of Michel Aoun in the Metn," Safa said.

Longtime Tashnag ally Murr can also offer the party meaningful
incentives to throw in their lot with the March 14 camp, Safa
added. The peripatetic Murr has for decades cultivated close
relationships with a succession of presidents, including President
Michel Sleiman, and Murr’s son Elias is serving as defense minister
on Sleiman’s nomination.

Murr "would mediate a larger role in the next government [and] being
closer to presidential decision-making," Safa said. Tashnag would
likely be able to name the Armenian minister in a 24-member cabinet,
or two ministers in a 30-member administration, Safa added. "That’s
significant. That’s monopolizing Armenian representation, also."

If Tashnag does side with March 14 in the Metn, they will have to
smooth over the "strain" between the Armenians and Gemayel caused by
the bruising by-election campaign in 2007 to fill the seat of Gemayel’s
assassinated son, former Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, Moubarak
said. Armenians interpreted some of Gemayel’s electoral rhetoric as
ethnic slurs, and their support for FPM candidate Camille Khoury was
crucial in Khoury defeating Amin Gemayel by some 400 votes.

While Tashnag’s favor carries significant weight in the Metn, both
camps have to strive to cobble together alliances broad enough that
neither camp will lose the district by splitting votes among a raft
of candidate lists, Hanna said.

For example, the Murr-Gemayel tie-up needs to coordinate with March
14 stalwart and Minister of State Nassib Lahoud to avoid cannibalizing
March 14 votes in the Metn, Hanna added.

Tashnag will also weigh its historic tendency to stick close to the
nation’s presidents, the analysts said.

Sleiman has largely remained above the polarizing dispute between
March 14 and March 8, and his status as a Lebanese president who is
not a Syrian flunky also represents a new element in the equation
for the Armenian’s thinking, Moubarak said.

"The president has been able to make a positive impression on the
Lebanese citizens," he said. "We haven’t had a president like this
in some time."

While Sleiman will probably not endorse any specific candidate
list, his legitimizing of a nonaligned political center could
give independent candidates a key role in the Metn and elsewhere,
Moubarak added.

"There is a middle vote," he said. "This middle vote is basically
a reaction to the ongoing tensions – many people are fed up. There
will enough votes for those independents to pick up."

As a result, questions linger about how many votes Tashnag can deliver
from the typically monolithic Armenian electorate, Hanna said. All the
analysts said a majority of Armenians backed Tashnag and have usually
voted as a unified bloc, but Hanna said some in the Armenian elite were
wavering in their support for the party and its MP Hagop Pakradounian
because Pakradounian did not reflect the elites’ interests.

"The Tashnag are like an authoritarian regime, highly controlled from
the center," he said. "The Armenians are like the Shiites. They vote
as one bloc, for one person."

The Armenians will also have to deal with attempts by Armenians
outside Lebanon to push Tashnag toward March 14 or March 8 – for
instance, Armenian groups in the US will probably lobby Tashnag to
side with the US-backed March 14 Forces, Hanna said. At the same time,
rumors persist that Tashnag backers in Armenia are working with Iran
and so will urge the party to forge an electoral coalition with the
Iranian-backed March 8 alliance, Moubarak said.

In the end, it remains too early to predict either how the Tashnag
will decide or how other campaign coalitions will evolve in the
Metn, despite the ongoing flurry of talks between the party and the
various representatives from the feuding political camps, the analysts
said. The negotiations have yet to bear any fruit, and all sides have
been waiting to see the candidate lists submitted by the deadline,
Safa said.

"It’s been eerily dull," he said.