Vote leaves Lebanon's Christians divided

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Vote leaves Lebanon's Christians divided

By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The deadlocked struggle between the pro-U.S. government and mainly Shiite opposition deepened Monday after a tense parliamentary election showed a sharp divide among Christians, a key swing bloc.

Sunnis are the base for the ruling coalition, which opposes Syrian influence. Shiite Muslims, led by Hezbollah, overwhelmingly back the pro-Syrian opposition. Neither side has been able to decisively lure the Christians, around a third of Lebanon's 4 million people, to their camp.

That deadlock was reinforced when pro-government candidate Amin Gemayel, a former president and the head of one of Lebanon's most powerful Maronite Christian families, conceded defeat by a mere 418 votes in Sunday's election in the Christian stronghold of Metn north of Beirut.

The victor was little-known Kamil Khoury, who was backed by the most prominent Christian leader in the pro-Syrian opposition, Michel Aoun. Khoury took 39,534 votes to Gemayel's 39,116.

The result "reaffirms the existing stalemate," said Rami Khoury, an analyst with the Issam Fares think tank at the American University of Beirut. "It shows a very polarized Christian community."

Many fear the deepening stalemate may lead to the formation of competing governments if it is not resolved before the race to replace pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, whose term ends Nov. 23.

Under Lebanon's division of power among its sects, the presidency must be held by a Maronite Christian chosen parliament. Now, no Maronite leader can boost his bid among lawmakers by claiming to represent the entire community.

Prime Minister Fuad Saniora's backers are hoping to finally put in place an anti-Syrian figure in the presidency to strengthen their power. They rose to control the government after Syrian troops withdrew from Lebanon in 2005, ending Damascus' decadeslong control of Lebanon.

But the political struggle with the Hezbollah-led opposition has sapped the anti-Syrian movement's power and paralyzed the government. Gemayel's loss is a setback for his potential as a candidate.

Aoun has said he will stand for the presidency. But the slimness of Kamil Khoury's victory Sunday damages his patron Aoun's attempts to present himself as the top Christian politician.

"Aoun is still a formidable figure but cannot really present himself as the leading Maronite figure anymore. That's probably the single most significant element in the election," said Rami Khoury, the analyst.

Gemayel, 65, was running in his home district with an implicit endorsement by the powerful Maronite patriarch. He was seeking to replace his son, Pierre Gemayel, who was gunned down in November in an attack that government supporters blamed on Syria.

Gemayel got more of the Maronite vote than his rival — 75 percent, according to press reports. But Aoun's candidate made up for it by winning other Christians' votes.

Gemayel supporters blamed his loss on the large ethnic Armenian community in the Metn district and said Kamil Khoury was not representative of the Maronites, who form a majority in the district and are the largest Christian sect in Lebanon.

Armenians are largely Catholic or Orthodox Christian.

Another election Sunday was to replace lawmaker Walid Eido, a Sunni Muslim who was killed in a June car bombing there. A pro-government candidate, Mohammed al-Amin Itani, won that race easily.

Vote leaves Lebanon's Christians divided

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Fresh blow for Lebanese Government
Nicholas Blanford of The Times, in Lebanon

The victory for Michael Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement in yesterday's by-election will disappoint Western backers of the Lebanese Government as it could further weaken the already-threatened administration of Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese Prime Minister.

With the difference in seats in Parliament between the Opposition and the Government extremely slender, every seat is considered crucial.

The result will also boost Syria, which had given its full backing to Aoun's candidate and which sees his party's alliance with Hezbollah as a way of increasing influence in Lebanon, and eventually bringing down the Government.

However, despite all of this, the Lebanese Government still has reasons to take heart. Fundamentally, this is because Christian support for Mr Aoun, and his party's pro-Hezbollah direction, is weaker than it actually appears.
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    * By-election blow for Lebanese Government

The evidence suggests that some two thirds of Christian Maronites did not actually vote for Mr Aoun's party - instead they voted for the Government's candidate in the by-election, Amin Gemayel. It appears to have been the pro-Syrian groups and the Armenians who secured the victory for Mr Aoun.

The slump in Christian support can be put down to some of his controversial strategic decisions over the last two years, since he won Parliamentary elections with an impressive 70 per cent of the Maronite Christian vote.

In particular, he took the unlikely and highly unusual decision to form an alliance with Hezbollah, which is a Shia Muslim organisation funded by Iran and backed by Syria.

This has flummoxed many of his traditional Christian supporters, who recall Mr Aoun's previous speeches in which he sharply criticised Syrian involvement in Lebanon, and supported previous UN resolutions to disarm Hezbollah.

With that in mind, his alliance with Hezbollah looks like political opportunism in the extreme, and a bid to dispose of Fouad Siniora's Government at all costs.

It is an alliance that not only irritates some Christians, but also leaves many in Hezbollah feeling uneasy. Bearing in mind Aoun's previous anti-Syrian and anti-Hezbollah stances in the 1990s, many within the Shia movement do not trust him.

A sideline to today's election is undoubtedly Mr Aoun's personal desire to become Lebanese President, in elections which are due shortly.

He will claim that his party's by-election victory stands him in good stead, but the voting patterns in that victory suggest it may be very much in the balance.

Fresh blow for Lebanese Government