Swissinfo, Switzerland
May 29 2005
Lebanese vote in Beirut with Syrian troops gone
By Mariam Karouny
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Voters went to the polls in Beirut on Sunday in a
parliamentary election starting a month after Syrian troops quit
Lebanon, with the son of assassinated former premier Rafik al-Hariri
seeking a clean sweep.
Nine of the city’s 19 seats have already gone uncontested to nominees
of Saad al-Hariri, a 35-year-old businessman thrust into politics by
the Feb. 14 killing of his billionaire father.
Hariri called for a high turnout but the response was tepid. An
Interior Ministry official said only 18.5 percent of eligible voters
had gone to the polls in the first six hours of voting.
Riding a wave of sympathy for his slain father, Hariri is set to
score a landslide in mainly Sunni Muslim Beirut, the first region to
vote for the 128-member parliament in elections phased over four
successive Sundays.
“The people will have their say today and demonstrate their loyalty
to Rafik al-Hariri,” he said. “Those who are against us today do not
want a unified country or a unified Beirut.”
Followers of Christian leader Michel Aoun, left off Hariri’s
anti-Syrian ticket, urged people to shun the polls, handing out
orange stickers that said “boycott the appointments.”
The Armenian Tashnag party, disgruntled because the four seats
reserved for Beirut’s big Armenian community had gone unopposed to
Hariri’s candidates, also demanded a boycott.
“No participation without proper representation for all in Beirut,”
said Tashnag leaflets in Arabic and Armenian.
The polls follow two political earthquakes in Lebanon — Hariri’s
killing in a bomb blast many Lebanese blamed on Damascus, and the end
of Syria’s 29-year troop presence.
Between those landmark events, flag-waving Christians and Muslims,
including many civil war foes, flooded the streets in protests
against Syria, which denied any hand in Hariri’s death.
For some, Lebanon’s first elections in three decades without Syrian
troops offer a new start.
“I voted because I believe in change,” Basil Eid, 27, told Reuters.
“We want Lebanon free of any subordination. We have to rule ourselves
by ourselves.”
POLITICS AS USUAL
For others, the euphoria of the anti-Syrian protests has given way to
dismay at politicians who have reverted to electoral horse-trading
and alliances that curtail voter choice.
“Why should I vote when the result is already decided?” said
Abdul-Rahman Itani, in his 40s, near the polling station where the
late Hariri’s widow Nazik cast her ballot.
Armed police and soldiers guarded polling stations in Beirut, where
more than 400,000 men and women aged over 21 are eligible to vote.
Official results will be declared on Monday.
“Things are quiet and very normal. We hope it continues like this
until the end of the day,” Interior Minister Hassan al-Sabaa told
reporters. “There are no problems whatsoever.”
For the first time, foreign observers are monitoring the polls, with
a team of more than 100 led by the European Union.
“It’s a festival of democracy,” the chief of the EU mission, Jose
Ignacio Salafranca, told reporters at one polling station.
Critics of Syria, which tightened its grip on Lebanon after the
1975-90 civil war, say its intelligence chiefs manipulated previous
elections in favor of its political partners.
Many Lebanese are unhappy with the current electoral law, designed to
favor Syria’s allies in the last election in 2000. Many of the old
faces will return to the assembly, but Damascus will no longer be the
sole arbiter of Lebanese politics.
“We are voting simply because we want change now that Syria is out.
We’ll see what happens now,” said first-time voter Jessy Tabbal, 48,
in Beirut’s mainly Christian Ashrafiya district.
Only a handful of pro-Syrian leftists and Muslim militants are
competing with Hariri’s Future bloc in Beirut.
The solidarity of the anti-Syrian alliance that blossomed after
Hariri’s death has eroded in the run-up to the election.
Hariri’s alliance with Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and some Christian
foes of Syria is intact, but Aoun, a fierce opponent of Syria just
back from exile, was left out in the cold.
Yet the Hariri-Jumblatt front has also made deals with the main
pro-Syrian Shi’ite alliance. Hariri’s Beirut ticket includes a
Hizbollah candidate. The joint Amal-Hizbollah list in the south
embraces Bahiya al-Hariri, the slain leader’s sister.
The election results are broadly predictable in Beirut and the south,
but tighter contests are expected in the north and center of the
country, especially among Christian rivals.
(Additional reporting by Lin Noueihed)