Tehran Times, Iran
June 7 2009

Will Lebanon change course?
By Salman Ansari Javid & Mehdi Nowruzvandian

Today, the Lebanese people will go to polls to elect their new
parliament. The voting will take place from 7 am to 7 pm local time
(04:00-16:00 GMT) at over 1,700 voting centers in 26 electoral
districts.

All in all, 128 seats are at stake in this election, roughly half set
aside for Christians and the other half for Muslims. Seats are
allotted on a sectarian basis, roughly based on the proportion of the
population that follows a particular faith.

The choice of voters boils down to two main blocs, the ruling March 14
coalition led by Saad Hariri and the March 8 coalition headed by
Hassan Nasrallah’s Hezbollah party.

Mr. Hariri rode to power in 2005 on a tsunami of support following his
father’s assassination by unknown assailants. His bloc currently holds
a majority of the 128 seats in parliament.

Political pundits predict that Hezbollah-led coalition, whose
popularity blossomed after Israel’s 2006 war against Lebanon, will win
the majority of the seats in today’s election.

Lebanese Christians represent the swing vote, and the 160,000-strong
Armenian community, only four percent of the population, is by far the
most unified subgroup of those votes. Their main political party,
Tashnaq, has already declared its support for the Hezbollah coalition.

According to a BBC report, thousands of expatriates have flown home to
vote and the voter turnout is expected to be high.

Some 50,000 security personnel have been deployed to prevent violence
during the election, although no incidents have occurred so far.

According to news reports, the streets of Beirut were mostly deserted
yesterday, as all government institutions and schools have been closed
until after the results of the parliamentary election are announced on
Monday.

On Friday, Interior Minister Ziad Baroud stressed the importance of
ensuring that the parliamentary elections meet international standards
after meeting with the head of the European Commission to Monitor the
Elections, Jose Ignacio Salafranca.

At a separate press conference, Baroud said 85.2 percent of the
electoral and polling staff had voted on Thursday, in what he called a
`rehearsal’ for today’s elections.

He said there had been some complaints about the ink used mark voters’
fingers, but he affirmed that the ink was widely used in the developed
world and that it could not be easily removed.

Baroud said it would be difficult for anyone to use a forged
identification card, adding that 600 complaints about problems with ID
cards have been addressed.

Hezbollah victory

Western political analysts have various outlooks about the possibility
of a Hezbollah coalition victory.

BBC’s Jim Muir, reporting from Beirut, says Western fears of a
Hezbollah `takeover’ do not really fit the bill as the party is
fielding only eleven candidates.

But to hear Mr. Hariri say it: `If the Lebanese people choose the
opposition bloc in Sunday’s election, they’ll be handing the country
over to Iran.’ However, polls show that these fear-mongering tactics
are not working for Mr. Hariri.

Another factor that should be taken into consideration is how the
U.S. will react to a Hezbollah coalition victory. A similar question
arose before Hamas fielded candidates in the 2006 Palestinian
Authority parliamentary elections.

Here, the answer is simple. The U.S. regards Hezbollah as a terrorist
organization and the Israeli lobby in the United States will never
allow the Obama administration to recognize a Hezbollah-led government
in Lebanon.

Two senior Obama administration officials — Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden — have recently visited
Lebanon. During his visit, Mr. Biden warned that the U.S. will
reconsider its assistance to the country if the next government strays
from certain `fundamental principles.’

This is another threat that the Lebanese voters are not falling for.

Another reason the Hezbollah coalition is likely to win is that the
bloc is offering hope to the Lebanese people whereas the opposition is
selling fear and making threats.