Amal-Hizbollah set for win in Lebanese elections

SYRIA’S staunchest allies Hizbollah and Amal headed for a clean sweep in south Lebanon’s polls yesterday in the first general election since Syrian troops quit their smaller neighbour.

Official results are not expected until today but early unofficial counts indicated a landslide for the Amal-Hizbollah alliance, commonly dubbed the “steamroller.”

Many in the Shi’ite Muslim heartland see a vote for Hizbollah as a vote for retaining its arms as resistance against neighbouring Israel which occupied the south for 22 years.

Lebanon’s elections for a new 128-seat parliament are being held by region over four weekends until June 19.

“I am going to vote for Hizbollah because they liberated the south. We owe them our blood,” said Zeinab Yasin in Houla, among the first towns to be abandoned by Israeli troops in 2000.

Hizbollah, which Washington labels a terrorist group, and the more moderate Amal are the dominant forces among the Shi’ites, Lebanon’s largest sect.

Voting got off to a slow start as the Amal-Hizbollah slate won six of the 23 seats in the south by default before a single ballot was even cast, due to a lack of challengers.

But activity picked up during the day and Interior Ministry sources said turnout among the 675,000 eligible voters was around 45% by the close of polling at 6pm (3pm Irish time).

Damascus backed both Amal and Hizbollah during and after the 1975-1990 civil war, and Shi’ites largely stayed away from anti-Syrian street protests that swept Beirut after the February 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

Those protests, which united Christians, Sunnis and Druze, forced Syria to end its 29-year military presence in Lebanon in April.