Democracy Lebanese-style

Election weekend was a surreal festival of airport hugs, car convoys, and gunfire, Lucy Fielder reports

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Saad Al-Hariri supporters greet Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora and Education Minister Bahia Al-Hariri in Sidon as they celebrate their win in parliamentary elections

Elections in Lebanon are somewhat surreal at the best of times, even without a surprise defeat for most pollsters' favourites to win -- the opposition led by Hizbullah and Christian leader Michel Aoun. Last week was no exception. The 7 June poll was the first time the Lebanese had voted together on one day since the war. Usually the tiny country of less than four million people holds its elections over several weeks, citing the unlikely pretext of logistical difficulties. It was also characterised by widely reported vote-buying and the parties' massive enlistment of Lebanon's diaspora, one of the largest in the world compared to the resident population. For the first time, nationals abroad were allowed to vote, as long as they held a valid Lebanese passport, a category that applies to 3.2 million people. And only as long as they flew back, since voting by proxy is not allowed. Hence, endless incidents of parties paying to fly their supporters home and boost their numbers in swing areas.

About 3,000 extra Lebanese passengers a day inundated the Beirut airport last week, according to airport management. Extra flights were laid on. "Our work's gone right up," said Ali Sayed, an airport taxi driver. "It's trebled because of the elections." Most Lebanese arrivals spoken to said they had flown back to vote, and even those returning for the summer anyway had come early. "Of course I've flown back for the elections," said Osama Ghaddar, who arrived from France three days before the poll, in an arrivals hall packed with waiting relatives. "These elections are fateful for Lebanon and will decide which way the country will go."

Hussein Allaw described the day before the poll as a "strange day", looking out over a Hamra Street that was eerily quiet, recalling the days after Hizbullah and its allies' brief take-over of western Beirut last May. It was Saturday morning, but a cat picked its way lazily across the car-free street. A March 14 billboard changed endlessly between "Lebanon turns the corner with your vote" and a blue Future advertisement imploring followers to vote for the list "as it is". Allaw works in a men's clothes shop on the street, the main commercial artery in the area, but said he had not seen one customer all day. "Everyone's at home or gone to their villages to vote," he said. "Today's strange, there's no one. Normally people are on top of each other, cars are honking their horns, and there's nowhere to park."

That morning, there were far more soldiers than shoppers. The government made Sunday -- election day -- and Monday official holidays to avoid trouble in the streets and allow people to travel to their home village, so Allaw's shop was one of very few that stayed open. The army cancelled all leave, and 40,000 troops and 10,000 Internal Security Forces were policing the country for the elections. Checkpoints sprang up, and on Hamra Street and Sassine Square, at the heart of mainly Christian Achrafieh, bored soldiers sat atop tanks, basking under the sun.

Once outside the capital, it was clear where the crowds had gone. The coast and mountain roads out of the capital became steadily busier as Saturday wore on. Falluja, a Christian and Druze village deep in the Metn region of Mount Lebanon witnessed a steady stream of returning locals. Lebanese are required to vote in their hometowns, not where they live, yet another factor that reinforces the ties between a citizen and his sect. "I've lived in Beirut for 50 years, but I always come back for the summer and for elections," said Asaad Abu Jawdeh, a retired shopkeeper. "We're all March 14 here, even more, we're March 15!" Flags of Walid Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party, the Druze party of the alliance, fluttered from balconies, and cars drove through bearing flags of the Christian Lebanese Forces and their co- religionist opponents, Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement.

On the day, poll-stations were packed, and the build-up to the vote translated into massive participation. Lebanese queued for hours to cast their ballots. "I've flown all the way back from the States to vote, and I've had to wait in line for three hours," said a hot and flustered voter in Achrafieh, Ziad Assaf. "But these elections will decide Lebanon's future."

And that was how the battle was pitched, by both sides. "Last battle between March 8 and March 14" announced the front page of the pro-opposition newspaper Al-Akhbar on the day before the poll. That sense pervades Lebanon, even if the pro-Western, anti-Syrian March 14 movement's unexpected victory in fact leaves the balance of power little changed. With about 100 of the 128 seats already decided by deal-making or the sectarian electoral boundaries, few seats were truly contested. In the end, March 14 got 71 seats to the opposition's 57. Many expect a national unity government to come next, but it is unclear whether the opposition will be given the veto powers it had in the government formed after the Doha deal a year ago, which brought a prolonged and violent political stand-off to a halt. The next few years in this sectarian, divided country could simply see yet more deadlock between sides that have each realised they cannot cancel out the other. Hizbullah's weapons may be a central point of dispute, but they also mean that there is no ignoring the party which remains the country's strongest. Aoun can still claim to represent the Christians, having won decisively in most Christian areas apart from the surprise losses in the eastern town of Zahleh and Beirut's Achrafieh. His parliamentary seats are up from 21 to 24, which is far more than any Christian rival, even if far short of the 35 or so his party was hoping to pick up.

On the March 14 side, student Cyrille Badawi agreed with Al-Akhbar, if only on its choice of headline. "Of course it's the last battle," he said in Achrafieh on election day, sitting in a café off Sassine Square that had been converted into a temporary headquarters for the right- wing Lebanese Forces of former warlord Samir Geagea. "Because March 14 is going to defeat them, be victorious and rule over Lebanon. We've waited four years to prove that we're the state, and we don't want an alliance with those who are killing us." He was referring to Hizbullah and its backers Syria and Iran. On Sunday, supporters on both sides were convinced of imminent victory, and election-day coverage was similarly breathless on the part of both Hizbullah's Al-Manar and the Future channel of Sunni leader Saad Al-Hariri, unofficial head of March 14 and perhaps the next prime minister. All saw the turn-out of 54 per cent, high for Lebanon, where most voters remain abroad despite this month's influx, at first as working in their favour.

Morale was similarly high down the road at the local FPM headquarters, painted in the Aounists' trademark orange. "We've waited for years for a clean, clear election," said 73-year-old Gaby Elias. "The waiting has been death. But right is on our side and God is great." Cars flying flags of the Lebanese Forces, the FPM or the Phalange coursed through Sassine Square, honking their horns. An opportunist stall-holder took up the central area with badges, pins and recorded speeches of all the main Christian parties. Multi- coloured flags of many parties, all for sale, fluttered in the breeze against a backdrop of tanks and jeeps. Nearby, party activists competed to hand out tiny ballot papers, printed with their local list.

From mid-evening, the exit polls emerged rapidly and reports of the March 14 victory gained momentum, with a Hizbullah source telling Reuters early on that Hizbullah and its allies had lost. Just before midnight, Achrafieh and western Beirut erupted in fireworks and Kalashnikov rounds fired into the air. "Congratulations to freedom," Al-Hariri said, from his Beirut campaign headquarters. "The main winner is Lebanon."

Gloom set in on the pro-opposition side. Monday's papers showed the soul-searching had already begun. "The opposition suffered a major defeat," Al-Akhbar editorialised. "The country enters a period of revision that will last a long time."