BEIRUT – Lebanon’s Western-backed March 14 coalition has defeated a stiff challenge by the Hizbullah-led opposition in national elections to retain its parliamentary majority.

A Lebanese election official counts ballots after their polling station closed in Zahle in the Bekaa valley June 7, 2009. Lebanese voted on Sunday in a high-stakes parliamentary election that pits Hezbollah and its allies, backed by Syria and Iran, against a bloc that has U.S. and Saudi support. REUTERS/ Mohamed Azakir

But protracted negotiations over the composition of a new national unity government could spark a fresh political crisis between the two rival camps.
A key sticking point is what should be done with Hizbullah’s weapons – a question that has been at the crux of the political schism in Lebanon since the devastating month-long war with Israel in 2006.

“It depends how smart March 14 plays it,” said Ousama Safa, director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies in Beirut. “The election result has ripped many cards from Hizbullah… but if March 14 has learned anything, it would be a major mistake to go after Hizbullah’s weapons head-on.”

Initial statements by March 14 leaders have struck a magnanimous tone, congratulating the opposition for a hard-fought race and expressing a readiness for cooperation and compromise.

While waiting for final results Sunday night, Walid Jumblatt, a March 14 leader and chief of Lebanon’s Druze community, said the opposition could not be sidelined from a future government.

“In case of a March 14 victory, we must not isolate the others,” he said. “Beware of the deadly mistake of isolation.”

The results of the election began to trickle through late on Sunday evening when it emerged that the March 14 bloc was gaining the upper hand in some of the key constituencies north of Beirut, in the southern town of Sidon, and in the Bekaa Valley, which were widely seen as the decisive battlegrounds in what has been the closest-fought election in over three decades.

Lebanese supporters of Sunni Muslim politician Saad al-Hariri, leader of the anti-Syrian alliance, celebrate in Tripoli June 8, 2009. A surprise election victory by an anti-Syrian coalition in Lebanon against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its allies set the stage on Monday for tough negotiations on forming a new government. REUTERS/Omar Ibrahim

As the results streamed in during the early hours Monday, fireworks exploded in the night sky above Beirut while motorcades of jubilant March 14 supporters drove up and down streets honking their horns.
The final results delivered early afternoon Monday confirmed March 14 was the winner with 71 seats in the 128-seat parliament, which included two allied independent candidates, against the opposition’s 57 seats.

The margin of victory was larger than predicted, with analysts suggesting that the arrival of some 100,000 expatriate Lebanese in the days before the election swayed the result.

“I think the expatriate voters tipped the balance. They were the external variable in the elections,” said Safa.

The results will bring sighs of relief and gasps of dismay from governments in cities as far removed as Washington, Tehran, Jerusalem, and Riyadh. Although a tiny country, Lebanon plays a pivotal role in the broader regional struggle pitting Iran, Syria, and their allies Hizbullah and Hamas against the U.S. and its Middle East friends, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who fear Tehran’s growing influence in the Arab world.

The term of the present parliament expires on June 21. Once the new parliament is seated, it will vote for a speaker of parliament, a position that in Lebanon’s sectarian system is traditionally occupied by a Shiite. Nabih Berri, who has been speaker since 1992, is expected to be re-elected to the post. The next step involves the president, Michel Suleiman, holding discussions with lawmakers on who should be appointed the next prime minister, traditionally a Sunni. Sources close to Saad Hariri, the head of the Future Movement and a leader of the March 14 coalition, have indicated that he will run for the post.

Hizbullah’s priority in coming negotiations is to ensure that a future government will not represent a threat to its formidable military wing.

“The majority [March 14] must commit not to question our role as a resistance party, the legitimacy of our weapons arsenal, and the fact that Israel is an enemy state,” Mohammed Raad, a Hizbullah member of parliament, told Agence France-Presse Monday. “The results indicate that the crisis will continue, unless the majority changes its attitude.”

Hizbullah insists that its weapons are necessary to deter future Israeli aggression. Its opponents argue that only the Lebanese Army has the right to bear arms.

When the government attempted to shut down Hizbullah’s private military communications network in May 2008, it triggered the worst bout of internal violence since the end of the 1975-90 civil war. The fighting ended with an agreement brokered in Doha, the capital of Qatar, which led to the formation of a new government of national unity in which the opposition held a veto-wielding one-third share. The veto power allowed the opposition to block legislation with which they disagreed, such as further attempts to disarm Hizbullah.

The March 14 coalition reluctantly accepted the arrangement, but argued that the veto power stifled government activity. Still, the Doha agreement bought a year of calm in Lebanon during the run-up to Sunday’s election.

The March 14 bloc said that while it favors a new national unity government with opposition participation, it will not repeat the offer of a veto.

“Clearly, the majority does not want to repeat the paralysis of the past year,” said a senior March 14 source who spoke on condition of anonymity. The source said he doubted that Hizbullah would provoke a crisis over the one-third veto share, asking, “what is their justification?”

But some analysts believe that a new crisis is in the making with an emboldened March 14, encouraged by the U.S. and by the scale of its electoral victory, to pursue Hizbullah’s disarming.

“This result will be seen as a victory for the U.S. and Israel. There will be more pressure on Hizbullah to disarm than before,” said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, an expert on Hizbullah.

She added that Hizbullah would consider it “imperative” that it retain the veto power in the next government.

“The outcome of the election is entirely to the benefit of the U.S. and Hizbullah will want to mitigate that by ensuring it has the one-third veto,” Saad-Ghorayeb said.

-Christian Science Monitor News Service