Will Lebanon change course?

All in all, 128 seats are at stake in this election, roughly half set aside for Christians and the other half for Muslims. Seats are allotted on a sectarian basis, roughly based on the proportion of the population that follows a particular faith.

The choice of voters boils down to two main blocs, the ruling March 14 coalition led by Saad Hariri and the March 8 coalition headed by Hassan Nasrallah’s Hezbollah party.

Mr. Hariri rode to power in 2005 on a tsunami of support following his father’s assassination by unknown assailants. His bloc currently holds a majority of the 128 seats in parliament.

Political pundits predict that Hezbollah-led coalition, whose popularity blossomed after Israel’s 2006 war against Lebanon, will win the majority of the seats in tomorrow’s election.

Lebanese Christians represent the swing vote, and the 160,000-strong Armenian community, only four percent of the population, is by far the most unified subgroup of those votes. Their main political party, Tashnaq, has already declared its support for the Hezbollah coalition.

According to a BBC report, thousands of expatriates have flown home to vote and the voter turnout is expected to be high.

Some 50,000 security personnel have been deployed to prevent violence during the election, although no incidents have occurred so far.

According to news reports, the streets of Beirut were mostly deserted today, as all government institutions and schools have been closed until after the results of the parliamentary election are announced on Monday.

On Friday, Interior Minister Ziad Baroud stressed the importance of ensuring that the parliamentary elections meet international standards after meeting with the head of the European Commission to Monitor the Elections, Jose Ignacio Salafranca.

At a separate press conference, Baroud said 85.2 percent of the electoral and polling staff had voted on Thursday, in what he called a “rehearsal” for tomorrow’s elections.

He said there had been some complaints about the ink used mark voters’ fingers, but he affirmed that the ink was widely used in the developed world and that it could not be easily removed.

Baroud said it would be difficult for anyone to use a forged identification card, adding that 600 complaints about problems with ID cards have been addressed.

---------Hezbollah victory

Western political analysts have various outlooks about the possibility of a Hezbollah coalition victory.

BBC’s Jim Muir, reporting from Beirut, says Western fears of a Hezbollah “takeover” do not really fit the bill as the party is fielding only eleven candidates.

But to hear Mr. Hariri say it: “If the Lebanese people choose the opposition bloc in Sunday’s election, they’ll be handing the country over to Iran.” However, polls show that these fear-mongering tactics are not working for Mr. Hariri.

Another factor that should be taken into consideration is how the U.S. will react to a Hezbollah coalition victory. A similar question arose before Hamas fielded candidates in the 2006 Palestinian Authority parliamentary elections.

Here, the answer is simple. The U.S. regards Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and the Israeli lobby in the United States will never allow the Obama administration to recognize a Hezbollah-led government in Lebanon.

Two senior Obama administration officials -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden -- have recently visited Lebanon. During his visit, Mr. Biden warned that the U.S. will reconsider its assistance to the country if the next government strays from certain “fundamental principles.”

This is another threat that the Lebanese voters are not falling for.

Another reason the Hezbollah coalition is likely to win is that the bloc is offering hope to the Lebanese people whereas the opposition is selling fear and making threats.

(June 7 Tehran Times Perspective Column, by Salman Ansari Javid and Mehdi Nowruzvandian)

SJ/HG

END

MNA