Lebanon's Metn Election Results

It was an election battle royale between the March 14 alliance of Christians and Sunnis versus the Iran pole of Hezbollah and Christian Michel Aoun. The election was close but in the end Aoun's candidate Camille Khoury "won" against former president Amin Gemayel.

I write "won" because the election has an air of Syrian corruption since the very beginning. The election is actually a special one in order to replace Amin's son, Pierre, who was assassinated by Syria last year. During election day Syrians who were nationalized Lebanese because of earlier occupation laws were bused in to vote. They had no clue why they were there because at first they wanted to vote for Hezbollah's Nesrallah then announced their intention to vote for Aoun himself. Several Gemayel supporters were also attacked as they attempted to vote. Add in early results claiming Gemayel was the winner (though many US candidates have suffered this same fate) and one starts smelling something odd.

The strategy of Hezbollah and its allies becomes clearer as time passes. They will not try to take over the country by force, too messy. Instead they will use the political process to keep Hezbollah armed and in charge of their microstate while they try to bring Lebanon itself in line with Hezbollah's goals.

The March 14 alliance meanwhile recognizes short term defeat but vows to continue the fight. Walid Jumblatt, de facto leader of the Druze, claimed Khoury's loss of his own village and needing Syrians to win is proof the Hezbollah opposition has little backing in non-Shia areas. While that is all well and good I am sure a Gemayel victory would have been a better statement.