Understanding Lebanon’s complex political system is no easy task. In a relatively small country of about four million, Lebanon has more than 18 religious communities and dozens of active political parties. The sectarian political system divides the 128 seats of parliament between 10 of those religious sects, leaving one for minorities.

Much has happened in Lebanon since the small Middle East country’s last general elections in 2005. Those elections happened in the wake of the February 2005 assassination of then prime minister Rafiq Hariri by a car bomb that shook Beirut’s seaside.

Just a month prior to the 2005 elections, Lebanese politicians including Rafiq Hariri’s son and current March 14 Future Movement leader Saad Hariri led demonstrations known as the “Cedar Revolution” which eventually led to the end of a near 30-year presence of Syrian forces in Lebanon.

It was during the Cedar Revolution that, on Mar. 8 2005, the Shia resistance movement and political party Hizbullah along with the other main Shia party in Lebanon, the Amal Movement, staged a large rally in downtown Beirut to support Syria, who they saw as the force that ended the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war and maintained stability in the country for the years to follow. Hizbullah and Amal, along with smaller groups, would from that point on be known as the March 8 alliance.

Days later on Mar. 14 2005, many of the groups most active in the Cedar Revolution staged their own rally, in which the March 14 alliance was born. In the 2005 elections, March 14 won the majority of the seats in parliament over the two other alliances, March 8 and the Change and Reform bloc led by the mostly Christian Free Patriotic Movement.

Ironically, it was the actions of March 14 and the Cedar Revolution that paved the way for former Lebanese General Michel Aoun to return to Lebanon in May 2005 after 15 years of exile in France. Aoun, who had battled Syria in the final years of the Lebanese civil war before going into exile, has now returned as an important Syrian ally. His party, the Free Patriotic Movement, is a key ally of the March 8 alliance.

However, Free Patriotic Movement parliamentary candidate Ghassan Mukheiber feels differently. “If I were to be very polite I would say that it’s a misrepresentation of reality. If I were to be impolite I would say this is stupid,” he told IPS.

“(In the 2009 elections) Hizbullah will actually have less seats in parliament, while Change and Reform could have from 30-35…we are a part of Change and Reform bloc, and are not led by Hizbullah.”

For the March 14 alliance, a win by the opposition would be like a return to times before the Cedar Revolution.

“March 14 is for a democratic Lebanon that is free from outside forces,” March 14 and Future Movement candidate Mustafa Allouch told IPS.

“If Hizbullah wins there will be less freedom, and we expect that March 14 leaders will be persecuted like they were before 2005 under the Syrian regime. Diplomacy will be halted, and there will be not only major Syrian influence in Lebanon, but Iranian influence as well.”

Mukheiber calls such statements an “over-simplification”, and maintains that “the Change and Reform block is pro-western and against any hegemony or foreign groups in Lebanon. We want a free and sovereign Lebanon.”

With only an expected 11 seats it could get out of 128, why is the world focusing on Hizbullah in the run-up to the elections?

Dr. Omar Nashabe, editor at Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar daily says it is not just during election time that Hizbullah receives widespread attention. “Hizbullah is attracting attention because they have proved solid enough to not be defeated by Israel. The objective (in the 2006 war) was to uproot Hizbullah, but it has not been uprooted or weakened.”

Hizbullah, a Shia resistance group that later became a political party, was born at the beginning of Israel’s 22-year occupation of south Lebanon. Many Lebanese celebrate Israel’s withdrawal from the south in 2000 and its failure to weaken the resistance in 2006, as both victories for Hizbullah and the resistance.

The United States considers Hizbullah a terrorist organisation. Former U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice offended many Lebanese on a visit to Lebanon during the Israeli war in 2006 when she referred to Israel’s attacks aimed at weakening Hizbullah as the “birth pangs” of a new Middle East.

Nashabe says many countries have an interest in the Lebanese elections. Countries such as Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia are interested in the elections as any country is concerned with the government of their neighbours, he said. But the U.S. has a strong interest too, he said, pointing out that U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden had recently visited Lebanon where he met with March 14 leaders behind closed doors.

“The U.S. does not care about Lebanese democracy, but only about Israel’s security,” Nashabe went on to say. “What if the Iranian President came to Lebanon and had meetings behind closed doors; that would create a lot of noise.”

If the opposition does win more seats in the election Sunday than the governing March 14, the world will consider it a victory for Hizbullah – but Hizbullah will not, Nashabe says.

“The difference will be small, only five seats, maybe eight. For Hizbullah, the only victory is over the Israeli enemy.”