Lebanese voters prevent Hizbollah takeover
Government of ‘national salvation’ set to rule after pro-Western Saad
Hariri fails to claim decisive victory
By Robert Fisk
Monday, 8 June 2009
Independent/uk
There will be no Islamic Republic of Lebanon. Nor will there be a
pro-Western Lebanese republic. There will, after yesterday’s vote ` for
the Hizbollah-Christian coalition and for the secular Sunni-Christian
alliance ` be a government of "national salvation" in Beirut, run by an
ex-army general-president with ever-increasing powers.
Washington would have preferred that Saad Hariri, son of the
assassinated ex-prime minister, came out with a clear win. But out of
the shadows will come the same crippled, un-healable Lebanon;
delightful, unworkable, poor old Lebanon, corrupt, beautiful,
vanity-prone, intelligent, democratic ` yes, definitely, democratic `
and absolutely outside our powers to reform.
The electoral system ` a crazed mixture of sectarianism, proportional
representation and "list" fixing ` means that no one ever really "wins"
elections in Lebanon, and yesterday was no different. The "anti-Syrian"
parties ` the Sunnis, the Druze, half of the Christian community ` made
sure that their votes prevented a Hizbollah takeover, while the huge
Shia vote ` for Hizbollah and the Amal party and the Christians who
follow the lead of the raving Christian ex-general20Michael Aoun ` made
certain there would be no clear win for America’s friends in the
country.
But the president, who under Lebanon’s unwritten constitution must be a
Christian Maronite, will be able to fashion some kind of "central bloc"
by midday today ` or so all Lebanon hopes ` which will include
Hizbollah, the forces of anti-Syrian Sunni Islam, the Druze and even
the Christians. The latter, always their own worst enemies in Lebanon,
albeit a minority, will ironically be more powerful than ever because
their president is one of them.
Lebanon deployed up to 60,000 troops and armed police to control the
ballot boxes and, to their considerable credit, not a single gun-battle
appears to have broken out. Given the personal nature of some of the
contests ` this is a highly tribal society whatever the modernity of
Beirut and its suburbs ` this was quite an achievement. Driving around
the capital, I found only good-natured checkpoints, handing me papers
of candidates’ names for whom I should vote, both Christians and
Muslims, in the same list. If they wore blue hats, they were for
Hariri. If they wore yellow hats ` and there were conservative Shia
Muslim women without scarves ` they were for Hizbollah. If they dressed
in orange, they were trying to win votes for Aoun.
The Lebanese, a very shrewd people, have been reading the foreign press
and listening to the BBC, Al-Jazeera, even Fox News. They knew that for
foreigners ` the ajnabi ` there was only one story: Lebanon becomes a
finger of Iran or Syria ` or it remains in America’s hands. More
dangerously, the Israelis would be able to claim it was a "terrorist"
state if Hizbollah won. But then the Israelis would claim it was a
"terrorist" state if even one minister was a member of Hizbollah. They
will have their way.
By last night, it looked as if the spread of parties would win a share
of the vote equal to their numbers; that the Shia Muslims would have
the largest group of MPs but without a majority, thus allowing
Lebanon’s power-sharing system to settle back into its old ways. Why
should we worry? Yes, it is corrupt. Tens of thousands of Lebanese flew
home to vote ` you can’t vote abroad in Lebanese elections ` so who
paid their fare? Who has $30m to spend on air fares?
To be a modern state, Lebanon must de-confessionalise. Its president `
currently the ex-general Michel Sleiman ` should be elected on merit
rather than religion. Its prime minister, who must be a Sunni Muslim,
should be elected on merit. But the moment you take away these
privileges, Lebanon will cease to be Lebanon ` because its very
identity is sectarian.
Lebanon is a tiny country, just over 4,000 square miles in size, and it
is very definitely Muslim (60 per cent of its four million population
are Muslim), but it has 18 religious sects which include the
descendants of the poor Armenian Christians who, naked and beaten,
dragged themselves here after their genocide at the hands of the Turks
in 1915. The Assyrians came this way. So did the Persians, Romans,
Crusaders, Mamlukes, Arabs and Ottomans. And the Americans, of course,
And the Israelis.
Yesterday’s election will probably have "united" the poor old Lebanese
yet again. In what cauldron, we can only wait to find out.
The politics and the players
*Who were the main players in the parliamentary elections?
A coalition of pro-Western factions competed against an alliance
linking the Iranian-backed, pro-Syria Hizbollah (Party of God) and a
Christian faction led by the former army chief Michel Aoun. Sunni
Muslims strongly supported the pro-Western grouping, which is led by
Saad Hariri, the son of the murdered former prime minister Rafiq
Hariri, while Shia Muslims supported the Hizbollah-led alliance.
Christians were divided.
*Will these polls affect the wider Middle East?
Electoral success for Hizbollah would increase Syrian and Iranian
influence over Lebanon, complicating efforts to restart the Middle East
peace process. Israel failed to defeat Hizbollah in a 2006 war and
would react negatively to its election. The US regards Hizbollah as a
terrorist organisation and had vowed to review its aid to Lebanon if
the Shia militant group won a place in government.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
