Anti-Syrian groups set to win majority in Lebanon elections

ANTI-SYRIAN rivals battled it out at the ballot boxes yesterday as voters crowded polling stations to vote in the most crucial round of Lebanon’s parliamentary elections.

The most heated contests involved Christian leader Michel Aoun and his allies against a coalition headed by Druze leader Walid Jumblatt in the central Baabda-Aley constituency and against a Christian alliance in the Byblos-Kesrwan district.

A total of 1.25 million people are eligible to vote in the Mount Lebanon and eastern Bekaa Valley regions in the penultimate stage of Lebanon’s first national election without the presence of Syrian troops for three decades.

But international concern over alleged Syrian intelligence activity in Lebanon has cast a shadow over the poll.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan decided last week to send a verification team back to Lebanon to check charges that Syrian intelligence agents were still in the country.

The United States says it has information about a Syrian hit list targeting Lebanese leaders. Syria denies the charge.

With 58 seats up for grabs, the shape of the next 128-member parliament should become clearer after yesterday’s vote. Forty-two legislators were elected in the first two rounds of voting in Beirut and the south.

Those rounds caused no surprises. The son of assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri won by a landslide in the mainly Sunni capital and a joint Hizbollah and Amal list of candidates triumphed in the southern Shi’ite heartland.

Many voters in the mainly Druze town of Aley, 16 km east of Beirut, said they voted for a Jumblatt-backed slate grouping Druze and Christian groups who battled each other during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.

“These alliances should happen so that we can forget the past. This is the only way to get over the war,” Nada Najed, a housewife, said.

Anti-Syrian factions are set to win a majority in parliament but groups allied to Damascus, such as Hizbollah guerrillas, are expected to have substantial representation.

The new parliament is set to decide the fate of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, address the disarming of Hizbollah, reshape ties with Syria and endorse a new election law.

Several opposition leaders have called for the ousting of Mr Lahoud, blaming him for a role in Mr Hariri’s killing, but the president has remained defiant.

Anti-Syrian factions have been able to capitalise on a wave of sympathy over Mr Hariri’s killing.