By Mona Alami
BEIRUT, Jun 8 2009 (IPS)

The Jun. 7 election in Lebanon has provided another dramatic turn of events in the country’s tumultuous political arena. While early opinion polls had pointed to a landslide sweep for the March 8 opposition that prominently includes Hizbullah, the Western and Arab backed March 14 coalition won the majority of parliamentary seats in a surprise victory.

Since the last parliamentary election in 2005, Lebanon has been torn between the two movements March 14 and March 8. The March 8 pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian coalition includes the Shia Hizbullah and Amal parties, the Syrian Social National Party (SSNP) and the Christian Free Patriotic Movement (FPM). Lebanon’s anti-Syrian March 14 movement is comprised of the Christian Phalange party and Lebanese Forces (LF) as well as the Druze Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and the Sunni Future Movement.

The Jdeidani family, which came from Sweden to vote, mirrors the internal rift that divides Lebanon. “We are eleven brothers; some of us support General Michel Aoun (who leads the FPM), while the rest are with the LF,” Jean Jdeidani told IPS.

People waited hours under the scorching sun Sunday to cast their ballot. “I have been waiting since seven in the morning,” Alia, a Future Movement supporter who was queuing to vote in the eastern village Saadnayel said late in the day. “I am here to show the world I want an independent Lebanon.”

As the polls closed at 7pm, the ministry of interior reported an unprecedented turnout. It surpassed 54 percent, according to interior minister Ziad Baroud, way ahead of the 2005 turnout of 45.8 percent.

“Some Beirutis waited hours to vote in the Beirut 3 district, an area traditionally known to be a March 14 bastion,” said Future MP Mohamad Kabani. He said this year’s 40 percent turnout in the district was a massive improvement on the 25 percent witnessed in 2005.

The turnout now showed that the Lebanese want “a strong and independent state,” Kabani said.

But statistician Abdo Saad, director of the Beirut Centre for Research and Information, described the election as the most disgraceful in the history of Lebanon.

“I have been saying for days that any government that would emerge from the current elections – whether opposition or majority led – would be an illegitimate one due to the massive vote buying that has been taking place in recent weeks,” he said.

Saad said the turnout of 70 percent seen in the Keserwan region was due to expats bribed into coming back to vote.

He said it was finally the vote in Zahleh in the east of Lebanon that shaped the new Lebanese parliament. A Christian area, the city is represented in parliament by seven MPs, and the March 14 coalition won all of the seats.

In the end, March 14 retained its parliamentary majority with 71 deputies (including two independents) while the opposition March 8 group won 57 of the 128 seats.

“The smear campaign used by March 14 against Hizbullah, which was accused of being Syrian and a threat to Lebanon, seems to have worked,” said FPM MP Alain Aoun.

But the elections alone will not decide the fate of Lebanon. In the next few days, the composition of the next government, and whether or not it includes the opposition, will weigh heavily on the country’s stability and peace.

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